


Prompto, The New Guy

by ItsAlwaysBloodMagic



Series: Prompto, The New Guy [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: AU, Aranea is a BAMF, Character Specific Spoilers, Epic Friendship, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Game Spoilers, High School, Intersex!Prompto, M/M, Medical Trauma, Multi, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Post-High School, Roadtrip, Self-Harm, Slow Burn, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-01-20 11:56:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 45,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12432330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsAlwaysBloodMagic/pseuds/ItsAlwaysBloodMagic
Summary: "Prompto Argentum had a secret, and it was nobody’s business but his own.  That’s what people told him anyway, and he did his best to believe it."





	1. Prompto, The New Guy

**Author's Note:**

> Prompto's character arc is a really common coded transgender story. It shows up in both modern and classic stories, including fairy tales. The most modern example I can think of is sci-fi where characters are androids and either don't know it or are hiding it (huh, you say). I don't think it's always done on purpose and I wouldn't argue that the game creators did it purposefully, but I recognized it right away. Originally I was going to write trans!Prompto but I decided that the details of his story fit the experience of being intersex more accurately.
> 
> Here's the deal: I'm writing an intersex character. I myself and transgender. I have intersex friends, but it's not an experience I claim to have myself. I want to make it clear that being intersex is vastly different than being transgender, and that the experience varies from person to person depending on a number of both medical and personal factors. This is Prompto's experience. Please don't take it as universal.
> 
> I'm an RN and my medical knowledge comes from there. I'm trying to be as accurate as possible while telling the story through Prompto's eyes, which means I'm being purposefully vague - both to reflect on the information available to him and because honestly it's super invasive when personal details are shared without consent, which for me extends to how a character is written.
> 
> If I'm getting anything wrong or being insensitive, please let me know. I'm here to learn.
> 
> All spoilers so far are in Chapter 3, and you can skip to the bottom of that chapter to avoid them.
> 
> Oh, and Aranea is just the most badass.
> 
>  
> 
> [Come visit me on Tumblr.](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/itsalwaysbloodmagic)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title: "In which Aranea Highwind knows a baby queer when she sees one."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Medical Trauma, Self-Harm

Prompto Argentum had a secret, and it was nobody’s business but his own. That’s what people told him anyway, and he did his best to believe it.

He was shy. Other kids intimidated him. When he finally got up the nerve to talk to Prince Noctis, the Prince looked at him and said, “don’t I know you?” Prompto died in that moment. He didn’t want anybody to remember the girl he was before.

He told himself it wasn’t that he minded that girl, it’s just that he really didn’t want to explain. So he ducked his head and blushed instead.

Noctis grinned, a wide-open smile that lit up the room. Prompto felt a hand come down on his back, hard. He jumped a little but he didn’t squeak or say anything embarrassing, so that was something.

The boys made introductions. Prince Noctis used the hand still draped across Prompto’s back to steer both of them down the hall to their first class of the semester.

They were inseparable after that.

*****

Prompto had three other friends. The first two were friends by default, since they were paid to hang out with Noctis. Prompto wasn’t sure that they counted, but they liked him well enough, and they were good company.

The third was Aranea Highwind.

Aranea was loud. She was brash. If Prompto had been in her grade, or even gone to her school, he would know that she claimed the same spot in every class, sprawled out in the back row with her feet up on the seat in front of her, calling out answers and cracking jokes like the world belonged to her. Aranea hung with a group of dykes that wouldn’t give “that weird middle school kid” the time of day, but she dragged him around anyway and told them to fuck off if they gave him a hard time.

The first time they met he was standing a block from the middle school waiting for the public bus to arrive. Aranea literally swept him off his feet, which is to say her perfectly normal greeting caught him by surprise. When he jumped and nearly tripped backwards, she squatted behind him and caught him under the knees, picking him up like it was nothing. 

“Ooh, look what I caught! Isn’t it precious?” She practically purred the words. She gave him a quick spin around, showing off her prize. Then she let him back down and said, “You’re one of mine now. Welcome to the club.”

When he entered high school Aranea was a senior. He thought she would ignore him but she tagged along between classes, made him introduce her to Noctis, and threatened to kick the Prince of Lucis’ ass if he hurt Prompto. Prompto and Noctis looked at each other. Noctis blanched, having been threatened within an inch of his life by Aranea fucking Highwind. Prompto just sputtered. He felt caught out, but he didn’t know why. She started calling them “my babies” and refused to believe them when they told her (over and over again, because she wouldn’t let the matter drop) that they weren’t dating.

Aranea became like a sister. Prompto had a helpless crush, but he had a helpless crush on everybody, so it didn’t bother her.

*****

They were at a party and Prompto was drunk when Aranea explained that no, she did not want to kiss him. Then she wrapped her arms around the punk girl sitting on her left and stuck her tongue down her throat.

Prompto got bold when he was drunk. When he was past drunk he cried.

Gladio laughed harder than any man had ever laughed (Gladio was a fun drunk) and teased him about his cluelessness. “Dude, that girl’s harder than a bullet. All her friends are lesbians. She shacks up with a new lady every week. How did you miss all that? Isn’t she your best friend?” Gladio squinted, like he was thinking hard, then added “Aside from His Royal Pain In The Ass, that is.” Prompto blushed and Gladio ruffled his hair.

Prompto knew Aranea didn’t like guys. He was just drunk enough to conveniently forget, and a small part of him was whispering that maybe Aranea didn't see him as a guy anyway. She knew him before, after all. Plus, he was hell bent on doing everything in his power to make a fool of himself, basically all the time. Prompto wiped the snot off his face and let Gladio pull him into a side hug and hand him another shot. Then he found Iggy and cried into his shoulder about how he wished Noct was here because if Noct was here he wouldn’t have to spend the rest of his life alone. Iggy, the poor man, dealt with Prompto the only way he knew how. He whispered soothing things into his ear, told him his life was not, in fact, ruined, and awkwardly patted the back of his head.

Aranea dragged him home with a hand around his waist. When they got to his door she kissed Prompto on the cheek and told him to make a move on Prince Charming before he lost his chance. 

Prompto wondered if he ever would.

*****

When Prompto was a baby the doctors decided he would grow up to be a girl. They looked at his genitals and decided between themselves that a vagina was the best route to go. When he was twelve he started taking medicine and visiting the doctor every six months. He knew the name of the medicine but not why they wanted him to take it. 

The visits were invasive. Nobody explained anything. His parents were in the room while he was examined. The doctor’s instructions were brusque. Hands on abdomen. Feet in stirrups. Legs spread. Fingers, then stand. Cough please. Bear down. The whole thing made him feel like a science project.

He had a panic attack the first time. After that he was given a pill to calm him down. He took the pill 20 minutes before his appointments. He panicked 40 minutes after his appointments. It happened every time.

*****

His parents stopped going with him. They stopped doing much of anything with him. His weekends were filled with Aranea and her aloof friends. His evenings were filled with an empty house.

He got a new doctor the summer before his freshman year of high school. Aranea went with him to his first appointment. She was the only one who knew, and it was only because he called her one day in the middle of a panic attack. He was terrified of being seen like that, terrified of what she would think of his empty house, of the garbage on the sidewalk and the bars over the windows of his neighbor’s homes. She came in quietly, sat with him on the floor, and when he was calm enough she handed him a glass of water. He talked, then, and she listened. He never went to another appointment alone.

She laughed when he gestured around and apologized for the mess that was his life. She told him about her own upbringing. Aranea was from Niflheim, had come to Insomnia to seek amnesty as a child. She told him about approaching the border at eight years old, being held in a detention facility, and finally finding a family. Prompto was born in Insomnia but his parents were immigrants. He went into the foster system when they were deported. He was adopted quickly. Infants were in high demand. Prompto had never met anyone with a story like his. Aranea talked about being a dyke and she was thrilled with it, rattled on about being queer like it was the best thing in the world. She assumed he could relate, and while Prompto wasn't sure, it was comforting somehow to be included.

The new doctor didn’t perform an exam. She sat down and talked with him instead. She used the term “intersex”, told him about the surgery when he was a baby, and explained about the estrogen he was taking and why he needed to be examined on a regular basis.

He was glad Aranea was there. His head was fuzzy from the anxiety meds and he wasn’t sure what he would remember later.

The doctor asked him how he felt about being a girl. He told her he hated it. It was the first time in his life he had the option to hate who he was, and he found the feelings buried but strong.

He found he wanted to burn the word “girl” right off his skin.

They talked about treatment options and he decided to go a different route. The doctor offered to talk to his parents for him, but they weren’t there and he didn’t even know when he would be home. 

It took Prompto almost a month to get his parents in the same room as him. Aranea was with him when he told them. They were indifferent. Prompto didn’t expect anything else.

When Aranea saw the marks on his wrist she yelled at him to stop being foolish, told him nobody would see him any differently because of some dumb medical thing, and let him know in no uncertain terms and that he needed to pull his head out of his ass. He realized for the first time in his life that he had a friend.

She helped him pick out a name and spread the word. Prompto thought she didn’t have to, since nobody ever remembered him anyway. He wanted a new start. On the first day of high school he mostly kept to himself. When people approached him, he introduced himself as Prompto, the new guy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus content!
> 
> Aranea: You're queer.  
> Prompto: I am?  
> Aranea: Yep.  
> Prompto, thinking: Is it because I have a crush on you?  
> Aranea: Try again.  
> Prompto: Uh, is it because I'm intersex?  
> Aranea: I don't know, is it?  
> Prompto: I don't think so.  
> Aranea, pointing to Noctis: See that guy over there?  
> Prompto: I think my heart just stopped.  
> Aranea: Told you.
> 
> [Come visit me on Tumblr.](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/itsalwaysbloodmagic)


	2. The Road Trip to End All Road Trips

The four boys piled into a car a week after graduation and set off on a road trip. At their graduation party Gladio kept telling anybody who would listen that it would be the road trip to end all road trips. To Prompto the whole adventure sounded like it was straight out of a movie.

Noct wanted to visit a girl, a childhood friend of his who lived across the country. They had kept in touch over the years, writing letters back and forth the old-fashioned way. Whenever he got a letter, Noct would go wistful for a week and talk about how he was going to marry her someday. Prompto thought it was sappy and gross.

Prompto wished Noctis was wistful like that about him, but he didn’t let himself think about it very often.

Being in a tiny car for hours every day and sharing a never-ending rotation of tents, caravans, and crappy motel rooms made not thinking about it very difficult.

They let Prompto drive exactly once. He wrecked the car. That little escapade wore such a big hole in their pocket that they were forced to take odd jobs for a week just to get their car out of the garage. The only positive part of the whole experience was that Prompto got to meet Cindy, and just looking at Cindy sent any crush Prompto may or may not have on Noctis Lucis Caleum, prince of Lucis and best friend of Prompto Loser Argentum clear to the back of his mind.

Cindy was a mechanic, which was hot. She worked on cars in nothing but a pair of thigh high boots, booty shorts, a bikini top, and a bright yellow crop top jacket that she left unzipped. The look included more cleavage and leg than Prompto had ever seen in his life, which was hot. Her southern accent mixed sweetly with just how damn smart she was, and Prompto found that to be the hottest part about her.

After three days of Prompto talking about nothing but Cindy, the boys decided they’d had enough.

Prompto swirled his straw around in his milkshake. They were sitting at the diner right off the Hammerhead Shop parking lot, where their car was being held until they could scrounge up the cash to pay for repairs. They were having meals there on the regular, since the tiny caravan they shared didn’t have a kitchenette. Iggy kept a cooler stocked with raw vegetables and Prompto stuck with those most of the time, but sometimes a guy needed a milkshake, you know? 

“Hey guys, do you think Cindy would go on a date with me?"

Noct looked up from where he was resting his head on the table long enough to roll his eyes. Ignis let out a bemused sort of sigh. It sounded like he was trying for patience. He was.

Gladio was sitting next to him, crowding him a little. He leaned back far enough to peer at Prompto. “How is it that your gaydar is so broken, big guy? Look at her belt loop next time you run into her. She’s wearing a carabiner. Lesbian.”

Noctis snorted. “Prom’s ‘dar is so broken he doesn’t even know he’s a little bit gay.” Prompto tried to stammer out a response. Noct just kept right on talking. “Its true, Prom. You check out guys all the time. You ever wanna figure it out, Gladio and I will play wing man.”

Gladio winked at Prompto. Prompto was speechless.

“Gladio, you can not go making assumptions about people’s sexuality based solely on their method of attaching keys to person.” Ignis leaned back in the booth and pushed his glasses up his nose.

“Yeah, but I can make assumptions based on their current activities.” Gladio nodded toward the window. Prompto followed his gaze to where a brown-haired woman was chatting with Cindy. Their body language was definitely… something.

“Okay, so maybe Cindy’s not happening.”

*****

After lunch Gladio and Ignis went on a walk, and Noctis and Prompto stayed to play games in the diner’s arcade. They had two pinball machines featuring Justice Monsters Five, one right next to the other, which meant the boys could play at the same time. 

The arcade was small and quarters were close. Prompto’s arm brushed Noct’s every time he hit the button that swung the right paddle. The contact was killing Prompto. Halfway through round one he gave up using the button altogether, eliciting teasing from Noctis.

“Dude, is something wrong with your hand? Want me to work that button for you?” Prompto swore Noctis was leering at him.

Prompto blushed all the way through round two but he managed to work the button just fine on his own, thank you.

During round three he was straight up leaning into the touch. What could he say? He was weak.

They took a break, idly standing under the diner’s only air conditioning unit. It was hot and Prompto had sweat pooling in the small of his back. He would have to change his shirt soon. He was going through at least two every day, which got him a certain amount of flak from Iggy about the cost of laundry. He would pay Iggy back for the laundry money if he had to. He wasn’t going to walk around macerating in his own sweat.

Noctis wiped his face with the front of his shirt, showing off a bit of his lower stomach. Prompto tried not to stare. His friend looked sideways at him. “Prom, you know we don’t care if you like guys, right?” 

Prompto very deliberately stopped staring. “Uh, it’s not that I think you mind, it’s just that… um…” 

Prompto's inner monologue kicked in. ‘I’m totally in love with you and I want us to spend the rest of our lives together but you think you’re marrying that Luna chick that you knew for like three weeks when you were a kid and I’m not trying to tell you that’s ridiculous but it’s really the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, especially when I’m right here in front of you. I mean I’ve been waiting for like four years for you to notice and maybe this road trip will make like a romantic comedy and there will be a scene in the rain where you finally look up and realize I’ve been there the whole time but right now everything is just super awkward and if I have to share a tiny caravan with you for even one more night I might explode but in the meantime holy shit stop looking at me like that why are you so beautiful – ‘

Well, that was helpful. He thought maybe Noct could hear his thoughts. Why else would he be giving Prompto that look?

But Noctis just took his hand, looked into his eyes ('fucking stop it already before I do something stupid like kissing you.' Yeah, his inner monologue was super helpful), and said, “we’re here for you, buddy.”

Prompto pulled away. This was all too much, but not for the reasons Noctis thought. He knew it was no big deal, at least the part where he was into guys. Gladio was straight, but he was also the straight version of a U-Haul dyke. He had three live in girlfriends in the past four years. Ignis hadn’t ever expressed a romantic interest in anyone. And Noct himself talked about guys, even though Luna was the only person he ever talked about specifically. Everybody basically agreed that the Luna situation was a childhood fantasy anyway, and Prompto wasn’t sure that it counted, even if he would never say that to Noctis. He thought about the best course of action. In the end he tried for casual. “Listen, it’s really not that deep, okay?”

Noctis gave him a look like he was peering into his soul, and also that he was really not buying it. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “Okay. Hey, do you wanna go fishing?”

Prompto begged off. He needed some space. He wandered back to the caravan. Noctis ran up ahead to fetch his gear and then trotted off to the fishing hole they discovered yesterday while they were out collecting ingredients for the cook at the diner. Prompto found Gladio lounging under the umbrella in a sweaty tank top. He had a beer in his hand that he tossed to Prompto before fetching another one out of the cooler. The bottle was really, really cold. Prompto sighed and pushed it up against his forehead before popping the top off and sitting down. The plastic chair was going to stick to his thighs, but he couldn’t bring himself to care right now.

Gladio watched him watching Noctis. “You ever gonna tell him, big guy?”

Prompto would like a very deep, very cold hole to open up and swallow him. At the very least his friends could stop being so damn perceptive. He settled for a swig of his beer and honesty shrouded in a joke.

“Nah.”

He wasn’t fooling Gladio at all.

*****

They finally scrounged up enough money to get their car out of the garage. Cindy saw them off. “Glad I could help you boys out. If y’all ever need any more work done on that baby of yours, come back and see me, ya hear?” She stood with her hip cocked. Prompto knew he was staring. He hoped it didn’t come off as creepy. He was sure Cindy got creepy guys staring at her all the time, and Prompto really didn’t want to be one of those guys.

He pretty much proved he wasn’t one of those guys when he tried to squeak out a response. “Yeah, okay, we’ll be back! Uh, g – good – see ya later, Cindy!” Gladio elbowed him, a good-natured smile on his face. 

Before they could get in the car, Prompto pulled Gladio aside. “Hey, Gladio, do you think I could sit in the front?” When Prompto wasn’t driving (which would be always from now on), he usually sat in the back. That was fine most of the time, but Noctis had taken to leaning against his shoulder or sometimes even lying with his head in Prompto’s lap when he wanted to sleep. Noctis slept a lot in the car.

Apparently he wasn’t as subtle as he wanted to be, because Noct walked over from where he was standing by the bumper of the car. He put his arm around Prompto’s shoulder and said “No way! Gladio, would you really deprive me of my pillow?”

“Hey Prince Charming, what’s wrong with my bosom?” Gladio winked at Prompto when he said it. At this point Prompto was used to his skin being permanently three shades darker than it usually was. He tried to play it off like he had a perpetual sunburn.

“Your bosom is hard. So are your abs. And your quads. Not exactly pillow material.” Gladio made to grab Noctis. Noct stuck his tongue out and squirmed away. He ended up in a head lock.

Prompto took the opportunity to slide into the passenger’s seat.


	3. Quicksilver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chocobros go on a hunt. Ignis is terrifying. Prompto learns a thing or two about his friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so... I didn't intend to do this, but SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE GAME. I just shattered the fourth wall. I'm not apologizing for the ridiculous level of self - indulgence that is contained in this chapter.
> 
> If you don't want spoilers, you can skip down to the fight scene, which is the last scene in the chapter.
> 
> I don't have a lot of experience writing action, so if you have any feedback I would appreciate it.

The next time they ran out of money, Ignis announced they should try their hand at one of the hunts that were posted everywhere. Apparently some of the local fauna wasn’t so friendly, and there were bounties for killing the most aggressive of the lot.

Prompto took it upon himself to whine about it. “Come on, are we really doing this? I’ve never so much as hunted a deer in my entire life. I’m a city kid. I mean, I’m good at shooters, so I guess I could fire a gun in a pinch, but real guns have recoil and I don’t think aiming in real life is the same as aiming in a video game.” He pantomimed firing a gun, then continued. “Where are we gonna get weapons anyway? It’s not like we can magically pull them out of our asses.”

Gladio, Ignis, and Noctis were all giving each other a look. What the hell was that about?

Gladio cleared his throat. “Whose gonna tell him?”

There was a long silence. Then Ignis opened his hand, and – were those daggers?

“Holy shit, did you just – where the fuck did those come from?”

Noctis looked nervous. “Uh, specs? You wanna take this one?”

Ignis patted a bench featuring a giant replica of Kenny Crow. They were outside a Crow’s Nest franchise at a small hunting outpost. The guy at the counter was the one to talk to about hunts. Prompto needed to sit down, so he did. Kenny Crow’s plastic arm dug into his back. “The king’s bloodline has certain… powers associated with it” Ignis began.

“I can stick stuff in my armiger” Noctis clarified. 

Gladio snorted. “I’m not even touching that one.”

Prompto asked the obvious question. “Uh, what’s an armiger?”

Gladio took a moment to get over his amusement, then put on his best serious face, which for some reason was directed at Ignis. “It’s like a giant suitcase that you can’t see. You can fit all sorts of stuff in it. Like camping equipment.” To prove his point, he opened and closed his hand, using the same motion Ignis had when he materialized a set of fucking daggers out of thin fucking air. Gladio was holding a camp chair. A minute later it was gone.

Ignis pressed his lips together. “You’re supposed to store weapons in it, Gladiolus.” He said Gladio’s full name sternly, like he was chastising a child. “As I have mentioned before, it is unbecoming to keep something as common as a camp chair in the Royal Armiger.” The man looked seriously disappointed in Gladio. Prompto would be groveling on his knees if that look was directed at him, but Gladio looked like a man that was pushing an argument for the sake of the challenge. Ignis’ daggers glinted in the sun.

“Specs, seriously. Put the daggers away. People are staring.” Noctis sounded concerned, maybe even alarmed. Prompto had never thought of Ignis as dangerous before. Ignis sighed, and then the daggers disappeared. For just a moment, his hands lit up with a small spark of something akin to electricity.

This was the coolest thing Prompto had ever seen. He decided he was just going to go with it. “You guys, that is seriously cool. It reminds me of that one video game.”

Noctis groaned. “You mean the one about the prince who goes on a road trip with his buddies? Too close to home, man. And it was weird. I didn’t know what the fuck was happening half the time.”

“Your Highness, all you needed to do was read the Wiki, which, as I remember, you made me read out loud to you at the end of every chapter” Ignis said in a rather smug tone of voice.

“Well, it was confusing, okay? And that one guy with the terrible accent kept making you find gems for him, but they were just little pinpoints on the ground, and they always ended up being buried under trees, and the camera angle was always tilted just right so you couldn’t see them. Oh, and don’t even get me started on the frog lady.”

Prompto laughed. “Hey, I was kinda into the frog lady. You can ignore all the side quests anyway, or go back to the open world and finish them once the game becomes more linear.”

The conversation devolved into an argument about whether the switch to linear storytelling two thirds into the game was an awesome idea or a terrible one. Prompto, Ignis, and Gladio thought it was ingenious, and Ignis went on and on about how open worlds were getting tired and big games needed to find a way to focus their plot lines. Noct hated it. He was loud and kind of annoying about his opinion, but he won out in the end, if only because everybody else was sick of hearing it. They all agreed that Chapter 13 was way too long and that they were glad the developers patched it to give the player an out. Prompto said he thought it was interesting anyhow and that he really identified with the character that ended up being an MT.

“That game was so sad. I cried all the way through the end. I wallowed in it for weeks afterwards. There were days Iggy had to come over just to get me out of bed.” Gladio had a look on his face like somebody kicked his kitten.

“Yeah, well, at least you don’t have to fulfill an ancient prophecy where you die for your people because your creepy great great great great grandpa is being a dick, right Noct?” Prompto nudged his friend in the ribs.

Noctis smiled. “At least there’s that.”

*****

Prompto let his friends drag him over to a shady guy selling weapons out the back of a truck. Why was he allowed to do that in broad daylight? It seemed like it should be illegal. 

“So, what’ll it be?” the guy asked cheerfully. He had a long scar running down his right arm.

Prompto tried not to look as intimidated as he felt. The guy could probably gut him before he had a chance to take a single step. He wondered if he was packing heat.

“Uh… I was thinking… a rifle?” He figured a medium range weapon would be best if he was expected to stay out of harm’s way.

“Hey Prom, check this out.” Noctis held up a pistol, all black with silver trim. It was beautiful, and Prompto felt the urge to reach out and run his hands over it. Noctis handed the gun to him and he studied the detail. The word “quicksilver” was etched into the handle. Prompto lifted it a little, felt the satisfying weight of it in his hands.

Ignis spoke up. “Noctis, that’s hardly a practical weapon to start with. Prompto has no experience with real life marksmanship, and a pistol can’t be counted on for accuracy at a distance.”

Noct just shrugged in his advisor’s direction, attention still turned on Prompto and the gun.

“She’s light, so you can move fast. Pretty easy to sight from too, so not as bad as you might think if you’re shooting from a distance. Plus,” the weapons dealer winked. “She’ll give you a, ahem, leg up if you aim for a limb. My own modification, that one.” Did the scary weapons guy seriously just make a dad joke? 

“Pistols are my weapon of choice” Prompto said hopefully, without telling the guy that his experience consisted solely of first person shooters. He took aim at nothing, just to look through the viewfinder. It was perfect. He let out a wistful sigh.

“Aw, he’s in love.” Gladio stood with his arms folded at his chest, watching the scene in front of him. “Let the man choose his own weapon, Iggy.”

Prompto’s face broke out in a wide, grateful smile.

*****

He was still worried about the hunt, though. Was he really going to go kill a garula without any marksmanship practice?

“Nah, we got something planned for you” Gladio told him when he asked about it. “You ever play paintball?”

*****

The paintball range was smaller and dingier than Prompto thought it would be, just a fenced off area small enough that Prompto could run laps around it easily. The owners seemed to think the boulders that came with the lot were ample enough cover, which Ignis approved of, because that’s about all they were going to get if they were fighting out in the open.

They were standing in the lean – to that served as a cashier’s booth and suit – up area. All four of them were dressed in matching armor, which really just amounted to a hard sort of plastic and foam vest, shin guards, and separate bits of “armor” that strapped over the arms. The outfits had red or blue detailing depending on which team you were on. They had helmets too, with green visors to cover their faces. Prompto thought that maybe the helmets were overkill and maybe the rest of it was not quite enough. The bored looking teenager working the till guaranteed them they would be fine. 

Prompto looked down at himself once he was all suited up. “Hey, we kinda look like MTs.” It was barely out of his mouth when Gladio yelled “Noct! Overhead!” The man was giggling, which was a pretty amusing thing to witness. 

Prompto couldn’t help chiming in. He pitched his voice up just a bit. “Imperials above us!”

“Thanks” said Noct sarcastically.

Ignis cleared his throat. “A Magitek engine! It’s close!”

Everybody stared at Ignis. “Wow” said Noct. “You really nailed the accent.”

“Oh, it’s not that hard. I sound quite a bit like him to begin with.”

Noctis snapped his fingers. “That’s it!”

Everybody groaned. In a completely unexpected move, Ignis tackled Noct to the ground. 

*****

The paintball game went well enough. They split into teams, with Iggy and Prompto playing against Gladio and Noct. Prompto managed to land quite a few hits on the enemy, and Ignis only got caught in friendly fire once. Prompto’s armor, however, displayed plenty of new paintball shaped marks. And, because Noct was a jerk, he would have matching bruises in basically every place his armor didn’t cover for at least a week. 

Prompto found he was quite good at dodging and rolling. He could even pull off an aerial cartwheel or two, which delighted him to no end. Now he just needed to figure out how to apply his new skill in a way that would save him from getting gored by an angry garula.

Gladio reminded him that they weren’t fighting anything that could attack at a distance. Ignis suggested he hang back and maybe find a large boulder to perch upon. Noct just told him he would be fine, and that the cartwheels were badass.

His favorite part was working as a unit. He and Iggy complimented each other’s fighting styles. Ignis pointed out openings to him and drew his attention to where the other boys were hiding. Prompto, in turn, acted as a decoy on a number of occasions while Ignis moved in for the hit. Noct and Gladio even helped him out. Gladio yelled at him to snap out of it when he started spacing off, and Noctis occasionally punctuated a perfect hit with “Good job, Prompto!” At one point Noctis caught him hanging out behind a boulder, where he had been for a while, and nailed him in the back. When Prompro turned around to glare at him, Noct simply said “No camping” with a shrug of his shoulder and a small smirk. 

After that, Prompto went full on melee, running around the field without paying heed to distance. He got a little too close to Gladio and the man pulled a fucking axe from the armiger, feinting a swing. Prompto ducked and squealed. “Hey, you get up close, you’re gonna get your ass kicked, okay big guy?” It was a lesson Prompto wasn’t about to forget.

When they finished and Prompto was still high on adrenaline, he hugged Noctis as hard as he could and asked his friend if he would still love him if he was an MT. Noct must have been just as high, because he picked him up and planted a big sloppy kiss on his cheek. “Of course, buddy. I’m with you, no matter what.”

Prompto was ready to go kick some garula ass. 

*****

Prompto expected a lot of things from the hunt, but he didn’t expect it to be fun.

He was nervous when they set out. He distracted himself with mindless chatter, mostly about the landscape and the creatures they passed that apparently weren’t dead set on killing them. They approached a herd of garulas and he froze up. Ignis noticed and hung back, placing a soothing hand on his shoulder. “Mind them. They will stampede if we approach. However, those are not the ones we are hunting. We are looking for a solitary garula that has turned violent. It happens when they are separated from the herd.” 

Prompto let out a sigh and felt himself relax. “Oh. Thanks, Iggy.”

“No problem. I believe you will be a formidable ally in the field.” 

He didn’t really think this was true, but he took the compliment. He skipped up ahead, making sure to avoid the perfectly placid herd of garulas.

“We’re going on a garula hunt” he chanted as loud as he could. “We’re gonna catch a garula!”

He was pretty sure he heard a familiar sigh behind him, but it sounded fond.

*****

They were following an outcropping of boulders that seemed to stretch on forever. Noctis led the way, and occasionally he would get fed up with their trajectory and scramble up a patch that he deemed not too steep, only to lose his footing and end up back at ground level. It looked like he was hitting some sort of invisible wall. The whole thing was ridiculous enough to make Prompto laugh, which got him several rude gestures from Noctis over the span of about fifteen minutes. The last attempt had landed the Prince on his back, which had Prompto doubled over and shaking from laughter. It took him a minute to register Gladio’s voice. The man was telling him in no uncertain terms to shut up and get down.

Prompto’s laughter died on his lips. He stopped dead in his tracks and straightened up, his hand moving down to unclip his gun from the holster they had purchased to go with it. Noctis claimed that attuning Prompto to the armiger was a process, so they decided it was best if he carried his own weapon for now. The second biggest creature he had ever seen was eyeing them from some distance ahead and to their left. (The first was the absolutely breathtaking dinosaur like creatures that would often idle around big bodies of water and that Ignis had told him were perfectly docile until you got up close, which seemed to be a theme.) Gladio stood just in front of Prompto with one arm out across his chest, which made him want to laugh again, because there was no way in hell he was going to run towards that thing. 

There was a moment when they were all frozen, and then Noctis did a thing that made Prompto wonder how many more secrets they were keeping from him. One minute Noct was flat on the ground, and the next he was flying through the air with a spear in his hand, aiming directly between the garula’s giant horns. 

Prompto heard Gladio swear. “Noct, that is the stupidest shit - hit him from the sides!” Gladio was running now. His warning seemed unnecessary, because Noctis’ aim was true, and the spear made contact. A moment later Noctis was hovering directly above the garula. His second strike landed on the creature’s spine. Prompto heard the crack of bones breaking and then Noct was flying again, catapulting to the side before planting his feet briefly on the ground, readying for another launch.

Prompto looked around for Ignis but didn’t see him. Gladio was standing directly in front of the garula, his greatsword sweeping wide arcs through the air. It was practically singing, and every hit that landed made a satisfying thud. 

He saw the big man look back at him and then gesture to a boulder. He nodded, then clambered up. The plan was for Prompto to mostly try not to get gored while the other three fought, which made him feel a certain sort of way, but he also had a strong preference for not dying. He watched the fight, admiring Noct’s form as he moved through thin air and the way Gladio put his bulk to use, throwing his full weight into every swing. He spotted Noctis hanging from his spear on several occasions, the tip lodged in a cliffside or a boulder or, at least once, a telephone pole.

After a while he realized that the garula was sporting cuts along its flank and back that were not the work of a spear or a greatsword. He saw a flash of metal and gasped. The creature kicked its hind leg back, and Prompto saw that the leg was bleeding where it hadn’t been a moment before. Not only that, the garula’s hoof made contact with something, and now that something was lying on the ground trying to catch his breath.

“Ignis!” Prompto yelled. He managed to leap off the boulder without tripping and ran to help his friend up.

“My thanks” Ignis said, genuine relief in his voice. He clapped Prompto on the arm before disappearing again, daggers drawn. 

The creature’s leg was now very close to Prompto. He summersaulted backwards, firing off a shot as he rolled. It made impact and the garula’s leg buckled. He stopped short. He had done that? He looked down at his gun. The name, Quicksilver, stared back up at him. Gladio was right. He was in love.

Ignis appeared again, slashing at the limb. Now that the creature was immobilized Ignis took his time. In a matter of seconds the leg looked like a prop from a horror movie. Prompto couldn’t stop watching Ignis do… whatever that was. The man was wearing a frighteningly toothy smile that made the hairs on the back of his arm stand on end.

“Prompto! Get it together!” Gladio yelled from his position in front of the beast. Right. Prompto forced his attention back to the fight. He fired off a few more shots, moving backwards as steadily as he could while he scouted a place to plant himself that would put him out of the fray. For the sheer thrill of it he did a couple of those aerial cartwheels he had managed to pull off at the paintball range. His gun seemed to have a mind of its own, firing in perfect timing with his acrobatics.

Unfortunately, the combination of areal cartwheels and firearms drew the garula’s attention. In the span of a few seconds he found himself staring down a very angry creature as it rushed right for him. Gladio appeared beside him, and for a moment Prompto was completely disoriented. He came to his senses when Gladio shoved something into his arms. He fumbled his gun, and the man caught it in midair, put the safety on, and slid it into the holster on Prompto’s hip in a way that would have been erotic if there hadn’t been seven hundred pounds of angry garula charging in his direction. He looked down to see a chainsaw in his hands. “Just pull the cord and hold on” Gladio yelled before pulling a frankly graceful move that landed him directly under the garula with his broadsword raised. It sliced neatly through the creature’s underbelly.

Prompto did as he was told. He pulled the cord and felt the machine come to life under his hands. He really was a city boy, as evidenced by how he very nearly dropped the chainsaw on his foot. He held the tool–turned-weapon out in front of him like his life depended on it (it did), moved his head back as far as it would go, and squeezed his eyes closed. The garula’s guts were hanging out, its left rear leg was cut to ribbons, and Noctis was still landing aerial blows, but the beast was charging him like he was the only thing standing between it and its babies. Prompto felt the chainsaw make contact the same moment he thought he might be impaled. Then he was covered in blood and the garula was on the ground.

There was a moment of calm where everything around him seemed to move in slow motion. He switched off the chainsaw and set it gently on the ground. Noct landed softly and walked over to him, clapping him on the shoulder and praising his performance. Prompto’s eyes swept the scene and found Gladio lying on his back laughing with bits of the creature’s flesh in his hair. Ignis was butchering the beast, which is to say he was carving it up into steaks. Prompto felt like he might be sick.

Then the adrenaline hit. He high fived Noct, jumped on Ignis’ back, and belted out a victory tune. Ignis gave him a sharp reprimand for ruining a cut of meat. The whole thing made Prompto’s heart swell with a kind of giddy happiness. He was out in the middle of nowhere with three of the most ridiculous people he had ever met, and somehow it felt like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimers: I have never played paintball in my life, I don't play first person shooters, and I don't know anything about guns.


	4. Gone Fishing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> camping, chocobos, and cameras

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delayed update. I got bogged down in schoolwork and then had to write a thing for the /r/dragonage art and fic exchange. 
> 
> I finally have an outline and we're looking at about 8 chapters total.
> 
> Thanks for reading! All of the comments and kudos have been super encouraging. I'm glad people are enjoying the story.

It was decided that they would bring a garula horn back with them when they went to collect on the hunt. They stored it in the armiger for the ride back to the outpost. Ignis protested, but Gladio pointed out that the alternative was to strap it to the top of the car, which made Ignis blanch, most likely because he was thinking about the damage the thing could do, so into the armiger it went. They had to hide around back of the Crow’s Nest to reclaim it. Gladio carried the horn across his back like he had hauled it all the way there himself and plunked it onto the counter without so much as a huff. 

Prompto hung with Gladio while they settled up. Ignis announced they needed more curatives, which Prompto understood to mean energy drinks, and headed to the little convenience store with Noctis.

The guy working the counter stared at the horn. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure you boys would make it back.” Gladio looked like he might take the poor Crow’s Nest employee on as his next hunt. 

When they finished their business and went outside, Noct and Ignis were standing just outside the car talking. They fell silent when Prompto approached. “What’s up, guys?” Secret conversations made him anxious. He knew he was being unreasonable, but Prompto always kinda felt like people were talking about him when they did that.

Noctis attempted a blank look. If Prompto wasn’t so caught up in his own insecurities, he would have noticed the flash of excitement in his eyes. “Iggy and I were just talking about how we haven’t done any fun stuff yet. Y’know, the car crashed right away so we were stuck in Hammerhead, and since then we’ve been scrounging to pay for gas.” It was true. One time, early in the trip, Prompto had asked Noct why he didn’t have, like, royal funds to pay for stuff. Noctis said that they were travelling on the pay from his part time job because his dad wanted him to have a sense of independence.

“We are still quite far from Galdin Quay. I’m not sure we can afford a diversion at this point in the journey.” Ignis folded his arms over his chest. 

Noctis rolled his eyes. “Geez, Iggy, you know we don’t have a schedule to keep, right? This is supposed to be a vacation.” 

“Some of us prefer to stick to an itinerary, your highness.” Ignis only pulled out the formal language when he was getting testy, but the corner of his lip was pulled up like he was trying to hide a smile. 

After the garula, Prompto was most definitely down for a diversion. “Cool, where are we going?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

*****

Prompto couldn’t sit still. He bounced up and down on the seat, tried unsuccessfully to keep his hands in his lap, and leaned into Ignis’ space until the man pushed him back with one hand on Prompto’s face. Then he turned around and chatted excitedly to Gladio about where they might be going and whether that landmark had a name and what Gladio was reading (romance novels, to Prompto’s surprise). He tried to help himself to an Ebony, only to have it swatted out of his hand with a punctuated “No caffeine for you” before Ignis laid claim to it. Prompto eventually looked over to Noctis, planning on asking his friend to fetch his camera case. When he found Noctis’ eyes, however, he was met with such a fond look that he blushed and stammered out a “never mind” before hiding his face in his hair and ducking back into the safety of his own seat. The view out the front window was much safer than the look the prince had just given him. Prompto calmed himself by playing with the radio, and for once Ignis let him.

Several hours passed. Noctis napped, Gladio read, and Prompto made small talk with Ignis. The advisor had always been a bit distant, happy to host Prompto at Noctis’ apartment or spend time chatting when the four of them were hanging out together, but Prompto didn’t have a sense of him the way he did of Gladio or Noct. He learned that Ignis liked to tell stories, that he had come to live in the Citadel at a very young age, and that, like Prompto, his family was distant if not altogether absent. Prompto drew the stories out of him. He asked for details or prompted Ignis to elaborate when he was particularly excited about a subject. Ignis spent a lot of time explaining exactly how to do one thing or another and was extremely knowledgeable about the intricacies of Lucian politics. He knew quite a bit about Prompto’s past. When Prompto expressed alarm at this he explained that anybody with access to the royal family was expected to pass a background check. He didn’t bring up Prompto’s medical history or the fact that he had changed so drastically between middle school and high school, so either the man didn’t know everything, or he was too polite to discuss more sensitive matters. To Prompto’s disappointment, Ignis couldn’t tell him much about his birth parents beyond what he already knew.

They chatted aimlessly for a while after that. Prompto answered questions about his own life, evading the less comfortable ones and becoming animated when topics he was excited about came up. Eventually the conversation dropped. The radio and the rumble of the engine filled the silence. Prompto was a talker, and he wondered just what it was about Iggy that made silence feel comfortable. He decided he liked it.

A sign appeared ahead of them as they rounded a corner. “Wiz’s Chocobo Post” stood out in bright yellow letters against a beat-up wood background painted a lighter shade of the same color. “Ignis, check it out!” Prompto tapped Ignis on the arm, his excitement rushing right back. “Can we go? Please?”

Noctis stirred in the back seat. Prompto remembered the feeling in his chest the last time he looked at his friend. He really wanted Noctis to be wearing that same fond expression. Prompto dealt with it by focusing his attention on Ignis, escalating the volume and urgency of his pleas.

“I suppose we could make a detour” Ignis said, as though he were considering it for the very first time.

*****

The chocobo post was closed. Noctis poked around in back until he found the owner. The man was exceedingly friendly and looked genuinely disappointed to tell them that the attraction would remain closed for several days.

“A behemoth took up not far from here. The birds are spooked, and rightfully so. It’s not safe for them to be outside so we’ve got ‘em in the barn for the time being.”

“Wha – a behemoth?” Prompto could feel his blood pressure going up. A garula had nearly killed him. The idea of running into a stray behemoth had him proactively praying for redemption.

Wiz chuckled. “Ah, I was just kidding. I’m going fishing. First vacation I’ve taken in years.”

Prompto felt lucky he didn’t pass out. He wasn’t sure if his knees gave out before or after he realized Noct’s arm was around him. His friend’s face was creased with concern. “You okay, buddy? Looking a little weak there.”

“Nope! Just fine!” Prompto jumped back, rubbing his upper arms and shaking his head to clear it. That was better. No behemoth, no overly touchy best friends.

Noctis engaged Wiz in a long and detailed conversation about where he was going, what kind of fish were likely to be in the lake, and what lures he was planning on using. After a while the man gave Noctis a considering look. “You boys wanna come along? We can ride the chocobos out there. No charge.”

Noctis scuffed his shoe on the ground. Prompto realized that he was waiting for his royal advisor and his shield to approve the trip. It was a dynamic Prompto hadn’t really seen before, and it was so different from the way he and Noct interacted that he found himself watching out of pure curiosity. The whole thing played out without a word. Ignis met Gladio’s eyes, the larger man gave a nod, and Ignis said “Thank you, I believe we will take you up on your offer.” Noctis broke out into a rare smile, the kind that communicated an excitement not often felt by the prince. It was a smile that Prompto had come to know more and more over the course of their friendship.

They made a show of pulling things out of the trunk of the car, angling themselves so camping equipment and fishing supplies could tumble out of the armiger without being spotted by their host. Everything was strapped to the five chocobos Wiz led out of the barn. Prompto took plenty of time to jump around in excitement and profess his love to the birds, scratching them under the beak and along the neck. When one approached and started grooming his hair, Prompto just tilted his head to give the creature better access. He was so entranced with the chocobos that he missed the look his friends were giving him; frank amusement, curiosity, and unfettered awe.

*****

They arrived at the lake near dusk. Wiz pointed out a large flat rocky area suitable for camping. “I’m planning on staying three days. Feel free to share a campsite, or find your own if you want. There’s several along this side of the lake.” The campsite was lined in glowing blue stones that looked like runes.

Prompto studied the stones. “Hey Gladio, what are those for?”

“To keep away daemons.”

“What?” Prompto squeaked. Daemons were just in stories, right? He was almost afraid to ask. Gladio did not look like he was messing around. “Daemons, uh, they aren’t real?” He meant it to be a statement, because it was fact, everybody knew that. It came out a question.

Noctis joined the conversation. Prompto looked for a telltale smirk, but it wasn’t there. “Why do you think we only drive during the day?”

“I thought it was because – Iggy’s night vision – glasses” Prompto wasn’t sure how much sense he was making.

Ignis pushed said glasses up his nose. “I assure you, my night vision is more than adequate.”

Prompto looked around at his friends. He was frozen in place. His eyes were getting dry from not blinking.

Gladio broke first, laughing so hard he began to wheeze. “Come here, kid.” He felt a familiar large arm drape itself over his shoulders. The other one reached up so Gladio could ruffle his hair. “We’re just messing with you.”

“Geez Prom, you’re so gullible.” That would be his very good, always super supportive friend Noct. Prompto forgave him because honestly it was pretty funny. He laughed, and he was surprised to find that he meant it.

Ignis never broke character, simply staring down at them with the same mock – offended look. Prompto approached him later and asked what the glowing stones actually were. Ignis was thrilled to have somebody to talk geology with.

*****

They decided to share a campsite with Wiz. After Gladio set up the tent and Iggy prepped dinner, the three of them headed down to the lake. Noctis was already fishing when they arrived. Prompto was surprised to see that Wiz was giving Noctis pointers. He seemed to be taking it well, given the amount of unsolicited advice he was used to receiving from Gladio and Ignis. Prompto had been on a few fishing adventures with the guys. Noctis would fish for hours. Gladio and Ignis dealt with it by backseat fishing. They had a routine: one of them would yell at the prince to spool the line or pull the rod towards the fish, and Noct would swear at them under his breath. Rinse and repeat. Prompto would be into it for a while, snapping pictures of Noctis and chattering along with the rest of the group, but he usually got bored and ended up just playing King’s Knight on his phone.

For the most part the tradition remained unchanged with the addition of Wiz. The peanut gallery managed to keep their comments to a minimum, which was a relief, but they still ribbed Noctis when he reeled in a particularly small fish and praised him when he caught a big one. Prompto wandered off to take photos of the lake. He had completely forgotten about his camera in the excitement of the hunt and he planned to make up for it.

He took some photos of a small patch of delicate blue flowers, one or two of Wiz, and more than a handful of Noctis with the lake in the background. The fading sun highlighted the blue undertones in his hair, and Prompto played with various filters in an attempt to capture the colors as accurately as possible. He may or may not have ignored the knowing grin Gladio gave him when he caught Prompto taking his fifth picture of the prince’s back. 

Prompto decided he wanted some photos of the chocobos. The birds were back at camp, tied out and grazing. He figured he could get a series of their feathers up close if he hurried back to the campsite before the last of the sun faded from the sky. “Hey guys, I’m heading back” he called to them, already turning to jog up the hill to the rock where their tents were pitched.

“Oh come on, Prompto, you’re gonna make Princess here pout” Gladio teased.

Prompto did not miss the blush that crept up his friend’s face before he shoved Gladio and told him to cut it out. He pretended to though, and did a damn good job of it.

*****

Prompto spent some time generally freaking out about his new feathered friends. He took photos of chocobo feathers, photos of chocobo beaks, an entire series of selfies next to chocobos, and a million photos of chocobos cuddling. He finally retreated to the tent when it got too dark to see. Prompto thought about starting a campfire but knew himself well enough to recognize that there was at least a sixty percent chance the tents would end up as kindling. Plus, he reasoned, Noct could probably magic a fire into existence. At this point nothing would surprise him.

He turned on the plastic lantern that hung from the tent’s highest point. Prompto was afraid of the dark and he had no shame about it. Anything could be out there. The light played off the canvas and made him feel a little more contained, almost like he was indoors. He wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and sat down on a camping mat, pulled his camera from around his neck, and clicked it on to look over the photos he had taken.

There was one of Noctis sitting down against the wheel of the car after Prompto crashed it. Prompto had bugged him about smiling for the camera and Noct had just glared. It was a cute look on him, Prompto decided. There were a few of Hammerhead, no less than six of Cindy, and a really good one of all four of them standing around the car when it came out of the garage, broad smiles on their faces. There were a handful of photos taken on the road, including quite a few featuring famous landmarks.

The ones after that were taken this evening. Prompto flipped through them, lingering on the shots of Noctis. He was studying one of them, admiring the outline of Noct’s shoulders through his shirt, when he heard the tent flap open. He quickly clicked the camera off. 

“Hey” said Noct.

Prompto looked up, a nervous smile playing across his lips. “Hey buddy. I was just looking through the photos from our trip.” 

Noctis joined him on the ground. “Cool. Can I see?”

Prompto wished that he could just go back to feeling normal around his friend. He had, in his opinion, done a good job of not developing a crush on Noctis. They had known each other for years. Why did he suddenly feel all breathless every time they had a moment alone together? He shoved the thought to the back of his mind and focused on showing his friend – his very good, totally platonic friend – the pictures he had taken over the past couple of weeks.

Noctis leaned close, because of course he did. Prompto tried not to let their shoulders touch. It was stupid – physical contact was never a big deal before. He told himself to stop being awkward and leaned closer, willing the somersaults in his stomach to stop. Prompto finally felt his weight settle against the prince’s side. Noctis didn’t seem to think anything of it, which made the whole thing easier for Prompto, and pretty soon they were just two friends looking over photos.

Noctis teased him about Cindy and admired the series of each of them sitting with Kenny Crow. He laughed when he remembered how grumpy he was about Prompto wrecking the car. “The heat was killer that day, remember? I was just trying to find some shade and you kept putting your camera in my face.” He flashed a frankly stunning smile in Prompto’s direction before turning back to the tiny screen.

He lingered briefly on the photos of himself, but didn’t comment on them. Instead he told Prompto the name of the flowers and complimented the light Prompto had captured against the chocobos’ feathers. When they reached the end, Noctis looked at him. “Why don’t you ever share your photos with the rest of the guys?” 

Prompto set his camera down and pulled his knees up to his chest, leaning away from his friend. He was suddenly self – conscious. “I don’t know, I just figured, you know, they aren’t very good.” He ended by pitching his voice low, an odd feeling of shame silencing him.

Noctis was quiet for a minute. Prompto felt himself being watched. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. “I like them.” 

It was enough. Prompto felt himself smile, relief pooling through his body. He leaned his head on his knees and turned it so he could see Noct’s profile against the canvas of the tent. “Thanks. That means a lot.”

*****

Dinner that night was garula steak. Prompto remembered the smell of blood and it made his stomach turn. He didn’t eat much, instead sliding his portion onto Noct’s plate. They traded for the small serving of vegetables Ignis had insisted on dishing out to the prince. Noctis and Wiz had caught about a million fish just hours ago, and it was so much better before it was frozen. Why didn’t Iggy make fish for dinner? Prompto wasn’t about to ask. He would probably be the first person in history to criticize the man’s cooking, and there was no scenario in which he could see that conversation going well.

After dinner Wiz pulled out a guitar and played a selection of tunes that left Prompto feeling nostalgic. It helped him work up the courage he needed to fetch his camera from the tent. He snapped a few shots of faces around the campfire before speaking up. “Hey guys, I took some pictures. We could look at them if you want.” He was anxious, but these were his friends. They all crowded around, exclaiming over their favorites and poking fun at each other’s expressions in the Kenny Crow series. Noctis told him he should take photos of their next hunt, which earned Prompto a lecture from Gladio about how he better not because the man sure as hell wasn’t scraping his body off the ground for the sake of a damn picture. Ignis did his part by giving Noct a particularly disappointed glare. Prompto had absolutely no intention of taking pictures in the middle of a fight. He would be happy if they never took another hunt again.

*****

They waited until Wiz was asleep before taking Prompto down to the lake. Usually attuning somebody to the Royal Armiger involved a ceremony, but they really didn’t have the luxury out here, so it was just Prompto, Ignis, Gladio, Noctis, and the moon. The lake was perfectly still. A mirror image of the moon shone up at the sky, and Prompto thought it was like a painting. 

Noctis stood on the shore with Ignis and Gladio on either side. Prompto stood directly in front of Noct, facing him. They all settled in. An unfamiliar silence crept up on them. Prompto would like to say that the experience felt sacred, or even special, but really he was just trying not to look at Noct’s face. He didn’t need the kinds of feelings he’d been having about Noctis intruding right now. Ignis leaned over and whispered something into the prince’s ear and Noctis straightened. The move made him appear downright regal, and Prompto saw his friend in a whole new light. He was standing in the presence of royalty.

The prince took Prompto’s chin and tilted it toward him. Prompto was definitely looking at his face now, and his eyes were calm. “Prom, hold eye contact with me, and take my hands.” In any other circumstances Prompto would be blushing, his heart would be racing, and he would have butterflies crawling out of his throat. Here, though, he did as he was ordered.

There was a feeling like electricity passing from Noctis to him. Prompto almost pulled back, but the grip on his hands was tight. Something was chiming as though from a distance. He saw the ghost of weapons not yet claimed flickering in the air. There was a pulse of energy, indescribable, and that was it. A blink, and then it was as though nothing had happened. 

Noctis looked at him expectantly. “Try it.” It came out excited. The commanding tone from a moment ago was gone. Prompto was just standing on the lakeshore with his friends. He hesitated for a moment, trying to puzzle out what he was supposed to try. Then he remembered. He took his gun from the holster. 

“Just open your hand and let go. You’ll feel it.” 

He did, and he did. The gun disappeared in a flash of blue.

“Now concentrate on your weapon.” Noct paused, and then added, as though it were an afterthought, “You have to name it so you don’t get some random gun.”

Prompto focused. Quicksilver. He imagined the weapon, the name etched on its side. He opened his hand. When he closed it again he was holding his gun.

It was incredible, like a magic trick, but altogether more real. He leapt into the air, cheered, tossed the gun and caught it. Gladio misread the situation and lunged to intercept the weapon. He ended up face down on the ground. Prompto laughed, opened his hand, and let go. The gun disappeared again. He grinned at Noct in delight. His best friend grinned back.

*****

He woke up the next morning to Gladio shaking him gently. Noctis was doing a very successful lumpy blanket impression by his feet. Prompto wondered briefly how he ended up there. The boys had started the night lying next to each other, and Prompto remembered waking up at least once to Noct’s head resting on his chest. Ignis was gone, but Prompto smelled bacon, so he had some idea of what the man might be up to. He blinked and rubbed sleep from his eyes, mumbling a confused half – question. 

“Get up. We’re training.”

He dragged himself out of bed and motioned that he would be right out. He needed to get dressed and it was easier without an audience. Prompto had gotten good at locker room tactics during high school, and so far the guys seemed to understand that he wanted privacy when he was changing. They would offer him the bathroom or clear the tent. He appreciated it. It was easier than changing under a towel, and Prompto would prefer to avoid accidental disclosure.

As the weeks wore on, Prompto was feeling more and more like he was keeping a secret. He told himself that Aranea was right. His history was nobody’s business but his, but routinely hiding his body was taking its toll. They had taken to visiting a swimming hole recommended by Cindy during their stay at Hammerhead. The first time they went the heat was so overwhelming they forgot all about their swim trunks. Gladio had declared that it was too hot to give a damn and stripped down right then and there. Everybody else followed. Prompto tried to tell them he didn’t know how to swim but Noct called him out on it, announcing that they’d gone to the pool every summer up until now. After that he just pretended to be self – conscious, which was true enough in its own right, just not the way people thought. 

It made it worse that they were decent guys and good friends. They didn’t push him when he insisted on rolling his pant legs up and wading in the shallows while everybody else took turns dunking each other. So yeah, Prompto felt really guilty for hiding the truth.

On top of all that he had a serious case of imposter syndrome because, you know, his best friend was the Crown Prince of Lucis and his other friends were trained in combat and sworn to protect him. Prompto was just a plebe. He knew he didn’t fit into Noct’s life, not like Iggy and Gladio, and in his heart of hearts he still didn’t know why he was even allowed to associate with the prince.

Prompto got dressed. When he exited the tent he found Gladio standing in the middle of the campsite. The camp chairs had been moved to the side and Iggy was set up far enough away that he could continue to cook without the risk of breakfast being toppled. Ignis gave him a nod and a brisk “Good morning!” Prompto waved back, trying for a response. His voice was still gravelly with sleep. Ignis, on the other hand, was downright peppy.

“He’s had his coffee. You don’t wanna see him before that happens. It’s a whole other Iggy.” 

Prompto took in Gladio’s words and remembered teeth that flashed like daggers. He shivered. “Yeah, I think I’ll avoid that.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “So, uh, I must be pretty bad at combat, huh?”

Gladio gave him a once-over. “Nah, you’re okay. I was thinking we could practice some combos. I saw the cartwheels you pulled off during the hunt. You ever do gymnastics?”

He had, and he recounted his experience with gymnastics, which had been a big part of his life from about five years old until he hit puberty. Gladio nodded.

“That explains why you move the way you do. I have some ideas.”

Turns out they were able to do some pretty cool stuff together. It was difficult at first because Prompto was out of practice and clumsy. By the end, though, they had two moves polished enough that they could pull them off with confidence. His favorite involved Gladio squatting and cupping his hands for Prompto to step into. Prompto would do so and Gladio would stand up, launching him into the air. He found he could fire a shot from the highest point before doing a back flip and pulling off a mostly – graceful landing. 

The other one was a little more intimidating. He would perch on a rock until Gladio was in position in front of him, then leap frog over the man’s shoulders, landing in a crouch and pulling off a melee move while Gladio swung his greatsword above Prompto’s head. He was concerned about this one because he really didn’t have a melee weapon and holy shit that put him close to the action. “You’ll be fine. You used the chainsaw, right? Now that you’re attuned to the armiger you can switch weapons pretty fast. We’ll practice with machinery.”

Prompto thought about standing back and closing his eyes while he waited to be disemboweled. He cringed. Gladio must have seen it because he took Prompto by the shoulder and turned him so they were face to face. “Kid, you landed the killing blow. You’re good with a chainsaw. I can’t wait to see what you do with other stuff. You wanna build your own? I bet we can get the weapons dealer to give you a lesson or two.”’ 

Prompto beamed up at Gladio. He had been building weapons in his mind from the moment the chainsaw was in his hands. His friend shoved him, hard, and told him to go help Ignis cook breakfast.


	5. Toast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the inevitable happens and the author realizes they are actually writing a slow burn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mean Iggy really does it for me.
> 
> Not quite a content warning? Prompto doesn't eat when he's anxious.

It was bound to happen eventually. People got cranky on road trips. They just did. Being crammed in a car with three other guys, sleeping on the ground or in a hotel room without enough beds, only stopping to stretch… these things were bound to make anybody cranky. 

All it takes is one little thing to set someone off, and then it’s like dominoes.

Right?

The problem was, people were cranky at Prompto. He messed up and now they had to drive all the way to Lestallum, a four-day detour if they arrived and left on the same day. Today was Wednesday. Ignis needed to get to the DMV during their open hours on Friday. The office was closed over the weekend, so missing the window would mean leaving Monday, putting them a week behind schedule. Prompto felt like he was on the receiving end of a very cruel, divinely ordained joke. The Astrals had a wicked sense of humor.

Prompto stopped trying to make conversation with Iggy, because every time he opened his mouth the man would remind him just how far off schedule they were.

Noctis was driving when it happened. He was doing a stupid stunt that involved half – perching on the headrest while standing on the driver’s seat. Ignis was freaking out in the back, demanding that Noctis sit down before they got pulled over, or Astrals forbid, crash the car a second time. Prompto only had his hands on the wheel for a moment, and that was only because Noct had let go to reach behind him and mess Iggy’s hair up. Guess what? He crashed the car. Again. And some responsible citizen called the highway patrol to report an automobile accident. The car didn’t even take any damage, but the cops came out all the same. They took an hour to process license, registration, and insurance, and then Ignis insisted on calling Cindy. When Cindy showed up she declared the car “good to go”, but she took some time to get there, and Ignis stood over her shoulder to make sure she covered anything that could possibly be damaged, from the engine down to the hubcaps. 

The take home message was that Prompto had a good three hours in which to lose two tiny, loose slips of paper.

Ignis had asked Prompto to fetch the envelope with all the car’s very important, difficult to replace paperwork inside, and when he was done talking to the police he handed it back. Prompto didn’t really remember what happened after that. He must not have put the registration back in the envelope, or he didn’t put the envelope back in the glove compartment, or something. He was pretty sure the envelope was there but the registration was missing the first time he looked. By the fourth time he couldn’t find either one. 

They discovered the mistake as the sun was setting, because of course they drove all day after that. They had to make up for lost time, after all. Prompto wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not that Ignis was so particular – maybe it would have been better if he hadn’t noticed anything was missing. As it was, Ignis went into the glove compartment to make sure the documents were in exactly the spot he expected them to be. And, well, the envelope wasn’t there.

It wasn’t anywhere.

They searched the car. They looked under the seats. They pulled up the little rugs that go under your feet to keep the floor from getting dirty. Prompto searched all his pockets three times, then felt along his waistband to see if he had tucked it there absentmindedly. He went through all his luggage, even pulling out his vests and jackets and anything else he may have been wearing earlier in the day. Ignis made everybody else do the same thing. 

A shouting match erupted between between Gladio and Noct in which Noctis declared that hello, it wasn’t his fault Prom lost the dumb papers. 

Prompto even looked in the armiger. He closed his eyes and thought “car registration”. Nothing. “Registration” got him a print out of Gladio’s college courses. He focused on “papers”. Not very specific. Aside from lots of blank sheets of paper, which he had to painstakingly sort through, a suspicious looking collection of essays with other people’s names on them tumbled out. The wind caught a couple of these and Prompto went chasing after them. When he got back to the car, Ignis was deep in heated conversation with Noct, presumably about how plagiarism would ruin his academic career. Bonus points for a twice pissed off Noctis.

When he tried “car” by itself, a collection of tiny model cars came pouring out. They filled up the front seat, and Prompto had to send them back into the armiger one at a time. It should have been funny but it wasn’t. Prompto tried to joke about it anyway. Nobody laughed. 

They found the envelope stuck between the front passenger’s seat and the center console. It had to be fished out with a chopstick and emerged dirty and torn, a muddy boot print stamped across one corner. Prompto tried to imagine a scenario in which the envelope could have possibly been tread on before ending up in the deepest, darkest recess of the vehicle. He failed. 

When they looked inside the envelope and saw that the registration wasn’t in there anyway, Ignis was not kind about it.

Dinner that night was toast. 

They left early the next morning and spent two whole days not talking. Ignis ran right through a creature crossing. Gladio stared out the window with a grim look on his face. When Prompto asked Noctis if they could stop for a photo op, Noct just glared at him. It wasn’t cute this time. 

Prompto was wearing new holes in the sleeves of his shirt by the end of it.

They drove through the night. Food was whatever they could scrounge when they stopped for gas. By the time they arrived in Lestallum everybody was beat. Gladio laid down the law the minute the car pulled into the parking area by the overlook. They were having dinner before anything else happened. He dragged them, against their will, to a sit-down place with plastic chairs. The only food on offer was offal stew. When Noct objected Gladio put his foot down. He was hot and tired and hungry and he wasn’t about to wander around until the princess found something that suited his fancy. Noctis just slouched down in his chair with a huffed “fine”. 

Ignis never got past pulling his chair out to sit down. He glowered over the top of it instead, voice dripping with honeyed sarcasm while he explained ever so patiently that it was currently five-oh-five on Friday and he would be booking them a three night stay at the Leville. He hoped they all enjoyed their weekend in the city. It was such a welcome diversion, after all. He punctuated his point by turning on his heel and walking away before anybody could respond. The chair was never returned to its rightful place against the table. It stuck out at a passive-aggressive angle, reminding everybody just how disappointed he was in all of them.

Prompto didn’t eat. After dinner he begged off, figuring nobody wanted to spend time with him anyhow. When he got back to the hotel the lights were off and three grown men were blatantly pretending to sleep. Someone had left a pillow on the floor for him, and Prompto was grateful for the gesture.

*****

Prompto woke up to someone kicking him on the way to the shower. He was all sticky and gross. The clothing he’d been wearing for three days was starting to feel crusty. Prompto needed to shower immediately, like right now. He looked longingly at the bathroom door. The shower turned on. He heard Gladio singing “stand by me” over the sound of running water. He would just have to wait.

Ignis had already left and Noctis was still asleep. Prompto was beginning to feel a little lost without someone to chatter at. He sighed and pulled out his phone to play King’s Knight.

Noctis groaned and rolled over, poking his head out of his blanket just enough to reveal one eye. He squinted at Prompto. “Dude, turn the volume down.”

“Oh, uh, yeah. Sorry about that.” The volume was, in fact, turned all the way up. Prompto lowered it.

“S’noproblem.” Noct’s eye closed, and he was back asleep.

He turned the volume down the rest of the way, just to be safe. By the time Gladio was out of the shower Noctis was eyeing his suitcase with a healthy dose of I-just-woke-up. Prompto made a beeline for the bathroom. He didn’t care if his friend was the prince, Prompto was showering now. 

It was the kind of muggy outside that has you thinking it’s 20 degrees warmer than the actual temperature. Prompto took a cold shower and let the water drip off while he brushed his teeth and started on his hair. It was a mistake – three minutes in and the little droplets all over his back were mixed in with his sweat. He had to rinse off again. The sound of the shower turning back on was Noct’s cute to start pounding on the door. Prompto was a nice guy, so he resigned himself to being sweaty. At least it was clean sweat.

Of course the only remaining towel was skimpy, and of course he didn’t bring his clothes into the bathroom with him. He did the best with what he had. Honestly, at this point, modesty was not high on his priority list. Without thinking much of it, he wrapped the towel around his waist and opened the door. 

He should really have expected Noctis to be standing on the other side, right? He had been knocking just seconds ago. There was a long, awkward moment where the boys just stared at each other. Prompto watched Noctis trail his eyes down his torso and back up again. They caught back up with Prom’s but they didn’t stay there long, instead darting from eyes to collarbone to lips and back again. Prompto nervously swiped a hand through his hair, sending little trickles of water down his neck and onto his chest. Noct stared at the rivulets, then fixed Prompto with a look that made him ache before very purposefully squeezing around him into the bathroom. The squeeze involved a lot of physical contact. Prompto knew Noct well enough to know it was on purpose.

There was a cough from Gladio. “You, uh, want me to go?”

“No!” Prompto said, maybe a little too quickly. “I mean, it’s your hotel room too. So you should stay. Um. If you want.”

Gladio gave the bathroom door a pointed look, but he didn’t leave. Prompto thanked the Astrals. He put his clothes on, being sure to fasten the towel tightly before pulling on his underwear.

He tried very hard not to think about just how long Noctis was taking in the bathroom. By the time he emerged Prompto had managed to dry and style his hair, using the mirror that hung over the requisite hotel room desk nobody ever used. Noct flashed him a completely normal friend smile and Prompto let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in. 

Gladio had clearly read the room well, because he stretched and stood as though he hadn’t been waiting around for Prompto to give him the cue to leave.

“I’m gonna go organize the car, see if I can’t find that registration paperwork.”

Noctis groaned. “If you find it, keep it to yourself. Iggy will lose his shit if he finds out it was there the whole time.”

“Hey Prince Charmless, leaving today instead of Monday would save us all a lot of grief. Plus, it’d get you to your girl sooner.”

Hands went to Noct’s pocket. A phone was pulled out, fingers playing across the screen. Eyebrows knit together and a frown deeper than Prompto realized a person could frown lit across his friend’s face. Great, he was moping. 

Noctis could stay mopey for weeks at a time, and there was enough moodiness in the past two days to last Prompto a lifetime. He would have to intervene, and fast. “Hey buddy, I was gonna go explore the town, maybe talk to the weapons guy about modifying my chainsaw. You wanna come along?” He aimed for an exceptionally cheerful tone.

“Nah. I gotta call Luna and tell her we’ll be late.”

The whole situation was getting to be a little much. Prompto wasn’t sticking around for lovelorn Noctis. The guy would just have to sort out his moping all on his own. “Well, all right then, see you two later!” He smiled big, pushed his way around Gladio, and skipped all the way through the hotel into the street. Fake it till ya make it, right?

****

Moods had improved, albeit only slightly, by the time he came back that evening. Everybody had taken a much – needed rest day. Gladio complained that the prince had to be physically removed from the hotel room so he could do his daily meditation/chanting/stretching routine. When Prompto arrived Noct was sporting the “I’ve been sitting in the dark watching TV all day” look, so Gladio’s alone time probably didn’t last as long as he would have liked.

There was a neat little row of spices laid out on the table, which meant Ignis had been by, but the man was nowhere to be seen. “He’ll sleep here, but don’t expect to see him until he’s completed his Quest For The Damnable Paperwork That Prompto Lost” Gladio told Prompto when he asked. “Iggy knows he needs to wind himself down if he’s gonna act civil. The spices are a good sign. It means he’s trying.” 

Prompto scored an impromptu lesson in building and installing mods from the local weapons dealer. He fessed up right away that pretty much everything in the shop was way out of his price range. Prompto didn’t want to lead the guy on, after all. Honesty was rewarded: he was handed a list of difficult to find scrap metal. The guy would not only pay him for the materials; he would give a discount if the items were to show up, no questions asked.

The last part seemed suspicious, but Prompto was fine with it. He was yet to meet a weaponsmith that wasn’t at least a little bit shady.

He brought it up to Gladio and Noctis. The idea was shut down faster than he could get it out of his mouth. 

“At this point Iggy won’t stop for anything less than the Crown City falling to the Empire. Sorry, kid.” 

Gladio at least had the decency to couch his response. Noctis just said no.

That felt shitty enough that Prompto decided he didn’t want to be around his friends anymore. He left before they could see his tears and spent a couple of hours wandering alleyways littered with trash before he realized how gross it was. The market district was especially filthy, the smell made worse by muggy heat and decomposing food scraps. Prompto went searching for a rooftop so he could get some photos of Lestallum at night. He found a rickety fire escape ladder and climbed it. The view was stunning. He just sat for a while, watching people mill about down below him and making up stories about their lives. It was something that he did as a kid when he was especially lonely. In high school he discovered that it was a good party game, and he still played by himself sometimes.

Prompto spotted a familiar head of spiky black hair down below. He was done feelings sorry for himself and wouldn’t mind some company, so he called down to the figure. “Hey Noct!” His friend looked around, not spotting him. He whistled and waved, and finally Noctis saw him and waved back. 

“How’d you get up there?”

“Fire escape, round the back. Don’t step on anything gross. And, uh, maybe plug your nose.” Noctis was around the corner before he could properly warn him about the disgusting state of the alley. Oh well. He’d find out soon enough.

He heard the loud clang of someone coming up the fire escape, and then the familiar crunch of boots as Noctis walked over to join him. His friend plopped down, dangling his feet over the edge of the rooftop. “Dude, it smells… offal down there.” Noctis laughed at his own joke, then leaned over and sniffed him. “You smell like it too.” Their feet bumped against each other.

Prompto made a show of cringing. “That was terrible.” 

Noct gave him a playful push, and they settled into a familiar routine of shoving and trading barbs.

The last few days had really done a number on Prompto’s self-esteem. He had to ask. “Hey Noct, are you mad at me? I mean, I think everybody’s mad at me. And you’ve kinda been moping.”

Prompto watched Noctis closely, expecting a lie. He would settle for a halfhearted denial. “Of course not, Prom. I mean, I was upset about the car, but not at you. Iggy’s been testy and that makes everything terrible, so yeah, the ride here was rough.” Noct sighed. He looked like he was telling the truth. “And, I, uh, I guess I’m hung up on this whole Luna thing. She didn’t pick up the phone when I called. I even texted her about coming late. No response.”

“And it’s my fault we’re late.” So he was mad at him.

“No, that’s – that’s not what I was getting at. Besides, I’m the one that pulled the stupid driving stunt.”

“Damn right you are.” Prompto would be lying if he said he wasn’t waiting for the apology. He grinned slyly and shoved Noctis one more time, toppling him. Noct struggled to get up for a minute before an arm was offered. Some of the poutiness disappeared. Prompto considered it a success. 

“When did you text her, anyway?”

“Uh, like 15 minutes ago? Right before you found me.” His friend rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “I’m probably being silly, huh?”

“Yep.”

Noctis offered up a reluctant smile. They turned their eyes to the goings – on in the city. It made Prompto’s problems feel just a little less significant. He wondered if Noct felt the same thing, but he didn’t ask. Instead he laid down so he could see the stars. After a moment Noctis did the same. Their feet found each other again, and if both boys stretched their fingers just a little they would be touching. It would be downright romantic if Noct wasn’t hung up on his not-girlfriend. Instead it was comfortable and familiar, even with the new flutter in Prom’s heart. Prompto would point out a constellation and Noct would tell him the story behind it. Noctis knew all the Cosmogony myths, and Prompto didn’t know any, so they were at it for quite a while before he worked up the nerve to speak again. 

It was deeper than thinking people were mad at him. It was being an outsider, being clumsy, losing stuff. It was being the weakest link when they went hunting. It was nearly a month now of lying about who he was, and it was this big, stupid crush he had on his best friend. It was how all these things were actually one big thing. 

He could really mess this up if he wasn’t careful. He thought about the fact that he really wanted there to be a “this” to mess up, and he decided to say something.

Hopefully he could say it all before his rational mind caught up with him.

“So, um.”

They were still lying down. Noctis turned his face toward Prompto, and for a moment he felt a brush of breath against his cheek. Were they really that close?

Prompto didn’t stay to find out. He sat up.

“There’s some things I need to tell you. Well, one really big thing, and a few little things.” Noctis didn’t say anything, just looked at the stars and let Prompto talk. He took a breath and kept going. “I kinda feel like an outsider with you guys, you know? You’re all… you’ve known each other since you were kids, and I’m new, and you and I get along, I mean, you’re my closest friend, but I know it’s not the same. And that’s okay, but – nobody here really knows me. Not even you, even though we know almost everything about each other. Okay, maybe everything. Almost.” That was too close to the mark. Prompto found himself steering away from the things he really wanted to be saying. “And… I’m here, but I’m not pulling my weight. And I guess everybody really notices that. So I’m sorry.”

He stopped.

“Is that all?” Noct sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees. The sideways glance cast in his direction left Prompto feeling like he was under a microscope. He squirmed a little. 

“No. Yes. Maybe? For now.” He just… he just couldn’t.

“Was there a big thing in all that?”

Prompto looked out at the horizon and thought about how close he had gotten to the big thing. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Prom.”

“Can we talk about it later? You can remind me if you want.”

“Okay. But hey, you’re being silly. About not pulling your weight. And being an outsider. We all want you here, buddy. Otherwise you’d be at home, I don’t know, smelling my pillow and missing me or something.”

“Noct, your pillows smell like ass. Not that I smell them.”

“Now you’ve gone and hurt Iggy’s feelings. Do you know how much pride he takes in his laundering abilities?”

“Tell him to buy the detergent that smells like flowers. It’ll be an improvement.”

“And if he did you’d smell my pillow?”

“No way.”

“But you’d miss me.”

“I’d have your video games to remember you by.”

They were sitting close enough to touch, and Prompto leaned against Noct like he had in the tent. This time it felt different, like there could be something there. Prompto just let the feeling sit for now, tested the weight of it, heavy and light all at once. They told ridiculous stories about the lives of the people below them. The brown haired young woman sporting overalls and a sports bra wore an astronaut outfit to work every day. The guy over there was a samurai warrior in his youth. In his old age he had taken to tasking adventurers with impossible hunts, awarding their efforts with legendary weapons. The couple with their heads together were having an affair, and the lady watching them from a window was reporting back to a spouse.

They kept at it until Noctis dozed off, head resting in the crook of Prompto’s neck. The nap was interrupted when Prompto’s stomach growled. Two nights in a row of no dinner will do that. A mental inventory was taken. His last proper meal had been Iggy’s Toast of Spite. No wonder he was hungry. 

It wasn’t the first time Noct caught Prompto skipping a meal. He always responded the same way. “When was the last time you ate? Never mind. Let’s get you some food.” They descended the fire escape, steadying each other for the two-foot jump between the last rung and the ground. A guy shoved a kebab in Noctis’ face and he passed it along to Prompto before getting one for himself. They walked while they ate, just two more people lost in the throng.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus content from Noct’s POV!
> 
>    
> Reasons not to creep on your best friend:  
> 1) He’s your best friend.  
> 2) See 1.  
> 3) You’re not into him.  
> 4) He’s not into you.  
> 5) He’s in denial about liking guys anyway. And no, it’s not your job to show him the way. That never works out.  
> 6) It makes him uncomfortable when you stare at his (beautiful, stunning, gorgeous, sexy) chest. Lips. Eyes. Neck.
> 
> Gods damn it Noct, stop. Now.
> 
> 7) Luna.
> 
> Luna doesn’t feel like a reason. Why doesn’t feel Luna feel like a reason?
> 
> Shit.


	6. As You Wish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a lifetime's worth of romantic comedies does Prompto a great disservice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy, things are heating up.
> 
> For those of you not on the Promptis train, we're gonna take a sharp left in the next chapter. For those who are, enjoy. You may also want to check out the companion piece I wrote. It's pure, unadulterated, tooth - rotting fluff set back when the boys were in high school. It's Part 2 of the series, so you know what to do. (Part 3 is smut, and chronologically takes place during the epilogue, so plan accordingly.)

When Luna finally got back to Noctis about their change in plans, it was to tell him the following week was pretty busy, but that she had carved out a few hours Thursday evening to see him.

They had a whole five days planned in Altissia. Noctis pouted all the way to Galdin Quay, where they were planning on catching a ferry over to the island city. Prompto suggested they explore the city’s sights together, all four of them. It was supposed to be super romantic, and it would be pretty depressing if Noct didn’t have his friends around to cheer him up, right? 

He honestly didn’t know how to interpret the look Noctis gave him over that one.

Ignis had the nerve to suggest they cut their trip short, given that they were already a week behind schedule. This, also, didn’t really fly. Gladio in particular made it clear that Iggy needed to back off on the itinerary, and for once he did.

The ferry ride itself was uneventful. They left on time, which was rare, because it was common for the lines to be unexpectedly closed for days on end. Ignis was back to his usual self, all terrible puns and quiet smiles. Prompto found a brochure on fishing in Altissia. When he showed it to Iggy and Noct, there was a quiet exchange of excitement followed by an hour long strategizing session. Completely confidential, of course, and held as far away from prying ears as they could get on a mid-size boat. There was a whole new plan sketched out when they finally emerged from the depths of the ferry. It featured a tour of every single place you could possibly sink a line. Noct looked thrilled with the development, finally having found something to do that maybe even surpassed a week – long date with the girl of his (day)dreams.

With nothing immediately at hand to draw his attention, Prompto found himself walking laps around the boat. He found Gladio seated in one of the plastic chairs lined up along the sides, reading a romance novel and occasionally staring out into the wake. Prompto gave him some space. He leaned against the railing and looked out along the horizon. Being on a boat, even one as stable as this, honestly made him sea sick. Humans were not meant to skim along the top of the sea. It was unnatural.

Prompto’s heart landed a double beat when Altissia came into view. It was all towering walls of water, city districts rising up between them, lost in the clouds and connected by canals. He filled an entire memory card with just photos of the approach. When they finally landed they took a gondola to the hotel. This was another series of photos. Prompto captured the canal-side restaurants and shops, the four of them sitting in the gondola, and the water itself, which was never going to stop being a source of fascination.

The hotel was expensive, so they ended up with a smaller room – just two beds in the main living area and a small cluster of chairs surrounding a fireplace. It was high tech though, with a built-in voice command system that turned the lights on and off and controlled the TV and stereo. There were floor to ceiling windows leading out to a huge balcony, and the view was to die for. 

Prompto took it all in and decided he was going to do his very best to enjoy his time here, Luna or no Luna.

*****

Dinner on Thursday night was a disaster. His plan to ignore the specter of Luna turned out to be unreasonable in light of Noct’s sudden, soul-crushing absence. It was clear that Gladio and Ignis were doing their best to cheer him up. It was also clear that nothing they could do would remove Prompto from the lovesick much he insisted on wallowing in.

He looked up from his meal to see Gladio peering at him like he was some sort of impossible to solve puzzle.

“I don’t know, Iggy. I’m out of my league here. He’s worse than Noct. You got any ideas?”

Ignis gave him a considering look. “Maybe we can go dancing? Get him drunk?”

“He cries when he’s drunk, remember?”

“I had forgotten.” Iggy looked down at the white pinstripe shirt he was wearing. “Snot does do a number on one’s clothing, I’m afraid.”

Prompto looked up at them, wiping away the tears that were already threatening to fall. “Guys, I’m right here.”

“Indeed you are” Ignis said, sighing and fixing him with an almost pitying look. “All right, Prompto, how would you like to spend your evening?”

The answer was as predictable as it was mundane. “I need chocolate.”

*****

And that was how he found himself in a tiny gelato place, staring down into his hot fudge sundae like it had done something to personally offend him. He poked at the melted mess with his spoon. The hot fudge had done its part to turn the double chocolate gelato into little runny puddles before becoming cold and lumpy, and the whole thing was making his stomach a little queasy. Well, that and the fact that the love of his life was currently sucking face with some girl he met, like, once, when he was seven years old.

Prompto wanted to cry. He settled for carving canals into his gelato soup.

Ignis leaned over the table and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Prompto. It is hardly my place to lecture you, but as a friend – “

“Then don’t” Prompto snapped. Ignis drew his hand away, and Prompto immediately felt guilty. “I’m sorry, guys, I just… this isn’t helping.” He gestured to his bowl, then to the rest of the shop. “You’re both being great. I bet I’m a pain in your ass, huh?”

Gladio leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Just a little” he said, but he was smiling. “Really kid, we don’t mind. Sometimes your friends are heartbroken, so you take them out to the fancy gelato place in the most romantic city in the world. No big deal, right Iggy?”

“Quite.” Ignis was smiling too. Prompto would take it.

“Thanks, really. You guys are good friends.” Prompto tried smiling. He wasn’t selling it. “I, uh, think I need to go back to the hotel. You know, mope around and watch movies and all that. Have a fun night out. Really.”

Gladio looked like he was about to protest, but Ignis laid an insistent hand on his arm, which had the desired effect of shutting him up before he could say anything. “Of course. We’ll check on you later then?”

“Sounds good.” Prompto stood up to leave. On the way out he spotted a display of very, very expensive chocolate bars. Fuck it. Desperate times called for desperate measures. He chose three, wincing only a little when the girl at the counter rang him up. He left the shop. It was raining outside, but it was a warm rain. Prompto let the drops fall as they would.

****

“Leviathan, play A Princess Bride.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand you. Did you want to watch A Prince’s Guide?”

“No. A Princess Bride.” Prompto fumed. So much for smart TVs.

“Playing The Prince of Tides.” The screen lit up, showing the loading icon, a creature resembling a sea monster right out of the Cosmogony books. It was circling around itself, letting the viewer know they should probably go make some popcorn because their movie wasn’t starting anytime soon.

Prompto wished he had a remote so he could throw something across the room. Seriously. Fuck technology. It was time to go back to VHS. “Leviathan. Stop.”

“Stopping. Would you like me to power down?”

“For fuck’s sake, yes!”

“Good bye.” The TV turned off.

Prompto grabbed a bar of chocolate and sat on one of the beds, considering whether it would be worth chucking across the room in place of the nonexistent remote. Instead he opened the bar, breaking off an entire third of it and shoving it in his mouth. He hardly tasted the thing. Too bad. It was probably really good, too.

The sound of the keycard in the door drew his attention. Noctis walked in. Great. Excellent. Prompto did the most sensible thing he could think of, grabbing a pillow and throwing it at the prince with all the frustration of a thousand attempts at making the damn smart TV do his bidding.

Noct caught the pillow just before it hit his face. He held it out in front of him, waiting for a second to fly. “Dude, what’s gotten into you?”

“Just the-” Prompto gestured at the TV with his chocolate bar. “Stupid Leviathan refuses to bestow her blessing on me.” 

“Uh.” Noct gave him a once – over. “Sorry buddy, not really getting it.”

“The smart TV. Doesn’t understand Lucian. Watch.” He glared at the television screen. “Leviathan. Play The Princess Bride.” 

This time all that came out of the speakers was a high pitched, grating noise. Prompto covered his ears with his hands. He looked at Noctis expectantly. “See?”

“Well, it’s clearly listening, at least. Let me try” Noct said, as though Prompto hadn’t been trying for the last 30 minutes. His princely confidence was really annoying right now. “Leviathan. Play A Princess Bride.” 

The screeching got louder. Prompto put his head under a pillow. “Dude, I think you pissed it off.” 

Noct, though, just kept right on going, as though he was having a perfectly normal conversation with a perfectly normal mythological sea creature. “Yes.” Screech. “Yes.” Screech. “From the beginning.” Screech.

The TV turned on. Robin Wright’s face flickered across the screen, followed by Carey Elwes, then Billy Crystal and Andre the Giant and everybody else. Music swelled, pouring through the hotel room’s incredible surround sound stereo system. 

“Wow” Prompto breathed. He looked up at Noctis with amazement. His friend looked downright regal, and for a moment Prompto remembered that he was on a roadtrip with a freaking prince. “How did you do that? It was like she was talking under all that horrible noise, and you understood her.”

Noctis shrugged. “Guess you just gotta speak Leviathan. Pause.” The movie paused. Noct came over and sat on the bed next to Prompto. He was giving him the same look Gladio and Ignis had been wearing all night. “Who broke your heart, anyway?”

What?” Prompto’s eyes widened. His pulse picked up. He tried to slow it down. Not a good time to panic.

“Come on. You only watch The Princess Bride when you’re hung up on someone.”

Prompto forced himself to smile. It came out a little over the top. He laughed, trying to play the whole thing off. “That’s not true. We’ve watched it together plenty of times.”

“Yeah, on Shiva’s Day when neither one of us have dates. So fess up, who is it?”

“You” Prompto whispered. Shit.

It was Noct’s turn to look surprised. Prompto did not like the expression on his friend’s face. Not one bit. 

He could salvage this. “Not what I meant. I mean, sorry man, in case – in case you, y’now, it’s okay if you’re flattered, I don’t blame you, I’m pretty hot…” Shut up, Prompto. “I chose it for you. In case things went sideways. With Luna.” He peered at his friend from underneath his hair. Was he buying it? “I got you this too.” The chocolate bar made an appearance, directly in front of Noct’s face. Maybe it would hide Prompto’s blush.

“Oh.” Second benefit of a chocolate bar blocking himself from Noct – Prompto couldn’t see him looking relieved. “I, uh, okay. Thanks?” Noctis took the gift and held it in his lap, hands running along the lines demarcating the proper amount to eat at a time. Ha.

“So, you, ah, wanna watch the movie? I mean, it’s early and all, not that I’m making any assumptions about your date.” There was a slouch to Noct’s shoulders that hadn’t been there a moment ago. “Okay. Sorry, that was kinda a dick thing to say. Let me try again. How’d your date with Luna go?” He congratulated himself on talking without the bitterness of jealousy creeping into his voice. 

“Wasn’t a date.” Noct looked crushed.

“Oh, shit dude, I’m sorry, that really sucks” Prompto said. He plastered his face with what he hoped came off as genuine sympathy. “You know, you could eat that chocolate. Instead of fondling it.” Or, if you really need to fondle something... 

Really, Prompto, not the time.

“No thanks. Was thinking about a walk.” Noctis stood, leaving the chocolate on the bed like he hadn’t really noticed it in the first place. Just like Prompto.

We’re working on sympathy here. We’re doing a great job.

His friend headed toward the door, turning around at the last minute. “You coming or what?” he asked, like that had been the idea all along.

Oh. It probably had, huh? Prompto stood and slipped his vest on. “Yeah, sure man, of course!” He trotted out the door, following in Noct’s wake.

**** 

The wandered the city for a while. Prompto filled the silence with chatter, pointing out sights here and there. They passed a really nice fountain, a plaza with a koi pond in the middle (“kinda silly when you’re surrounded by water, right Noct?)”, a really ugly metal statue, and many, many fishing piers. 

“Hey buddy, you wanna go fishing?”

“Nah.”

“Al-alright. We’ll just keep walking then.”

Noctis was being sullen, and Prompto was finding it harder and harder to take. Iggy and Gladio must be really good friends if they put up with this all night. He was glad he’d given them a break.

After way too much walking, even for Prompto, Noct threw himself down on a bench. He kept his hands in his pockets and slouched until his spine was almost curled in on itself. Prompto resisted the urge to tell him to sit up straight. He must be spending too much time with Iggy.

“So, you gonna tell me what happened with Luna?” Prompto asked. He settled himself on the bench.

Noctis was silent for a long moment. “She has a boyfriend.” His eyes were trained on his shoes.

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. Ouch.” Noct sat up and ran one hand through his hair, then rested his arm on the back of the bench and turned so he was facing Prompto. “Luna said she didn’t know I wanted it to be like that. She, you know, values our friendship, all the other stuff people say when they’re trying to let you down easy.”

He really should’ve brought emergency chocolate on their walk.

Noctis put a hand on Prompto’s knee. Prompto stared at it, willing himself not to read too much into his heartbroken friend’s totally platonic touch. “She, ah, said I’m not very good at telling people how I feel.” Eyes met his. Something clicked. Oh. Maybe not so platonic?

“Yeah, I have that problem too” Prompto breathed.

There was a long, careful silence. The gentle, warm rain that had been falling intermittently started to patter as insistently as Prompto’s heart. 

“It’s raining” Noct said. Their faces were really close. Prompto couldn’t look away. This was really happening. Prompto counted in his head to calm himself down. 98, 99, 100, 101…

Prompto thought about every romantic comedy he had ever seen, thought about the moment when the best friend breaks up with his betrothed and realizes the love of his life had been right there in front of him the whole time. The rain picked up even more. Prompto’s hair was wet, his skin was wet, and big fat raindrops kept landing on his nose and splashing into his eyes. He shook his head in an attempt to clear them, and water went everywhere. Noctis reached out to brush the hair out of his face. Prompto leaned into his hand and waited…

This was it, the ball was firmly in Noct’s court. He was the one that was supposed to make the move here, right? Prompto was supposed to sit back, content in the knowledge that things were playing out exactly like they were fated to. He just needed to wait, just a moment longer, maybe lean in? Yeah, lean in. Hinting was okay, right?

The hand withdrew. 

Prompto just sat there, confused for a moment. Noctis was turning to face forward again, eye contact broken. His hands were very firmly folded over one another, elbows where they belonged, resting on knees that were not Prompto’s. He had read too much into it. There was nothing there, and the rain had fallen, and he thought for a moment he was in a stupid movie, but he wasn’t. This was real life and he was supposed to be comforting his best friend who had just gotten his heart broken.

“So.” Noct said. He cleared his throat. “Uh, I’m pretty soaked through.” 

“Oh! Of course! You, ah, wanna borrow my jacket?” That was romantic, right? Maybe if he just dropped a few more hints… just to make sure, of course.

“Prom, you’re wearing a vest.”

A denim vest. With a T-shirt underneath. “Yeah, right. I am, aren’t I?” He was an idiot. “I could see if there’s something in the armiger.”

Noctis just looked at him. “Actually, can we go back to the hotel? It’s getting kinda cold.”

There were goosebumps on Prompto’s arms. He rubbed his hands across them and shivered. He hadn’t noticed the chill. They were both soaking wet, it was night, of course they were cold. 

“Good idea, buddy. Cold over here, too. Vest isn’t really cutting it.” He flashed Noctis a smile and got a laugh in return. 

They turned back in the direction of the hotel. An arm looped its way through Prompto’s. He stared down at it for a moment, then breathed out and picked up his pace, dragging Noct into a playful half-trot. “You gonna take me up on movies and chocolate?”

“That was the plan.” Fingers found each other. Linked arms became swinging arms, and the trot became a skip.

*****

When Gladio and Ignis returned to the room, the boys were curled up on one of the beds, heads toward the foot, fast asleep. Their bodies were helplessly tangled together, arms around waists, hands smooshed against drooling mouths, legs and feet and knees so mixed up it was hard to parse out whose was whose. 

Ignis let out a relieved sigh. “I supposed that’s settled then.”

“Nah.” Gladio nodded at the TV. A curly – haired man’s mouth was moving, rapier pointed at another man’s chest. The sound was turned down but Gladio knew the words by heart. Everybody did.

“Oh, drat.” Ignis muttered.

“Yeah. If this plays out the way it usually does, and you know it will, tomorrow’s gonna be rough.” Gladio laughed at the pained crease developing between Ignis’ brows. “You’d better wake up early, get a couple cups of coffee in you before it starts.”

Ignis ran a hand over his face. “I suppose you’ll be joining me?”

“Yep.” Gladio walked over to where a remote was mounted on the wall. He grabbed it, aimed it at the TV, and pushed the power button. The screen went black.

“You know you can talk to it, right?”

Gladio threw the remote down on the coffee table. “Rather not waste the breath. Smart TVs never work anyway.”

“No” Ignis said, “No, they do not.”

*****

Ignis gritted his teeth, clutching at his third cup of coffee like it was a lifeline. It was terrible stuff really, weak, with subtle notes of dishwater. He was drinking it anyway. This was all too much for him.

“Farm Boy, fetch me the sugar.”

“As you wish.”

He let go of the mug to rest his head in his hands. A migraine was coming on.

“Farm boy, fetch me a napkin.” 

A high-pitched giggle, the sound of a chair scraping back, feet plodding away.

A cough, expectant, from across the table. 

Another giggle. “Sorry dude. Uh, as you wish.” Ignis looked up in time to see Prompto bow low and playful, wearing an absolutely wistful look, clear as day. The boy hopped over to the counter where the extra napkins were kept. Ignis groaned, looking to Gladio for support.

Gladio just gave him a wide, knowing grin.

“Fuck off” Ignis mouthed. Gladio’s grin got wider.

Prompto returned to the table, clutching the entire container of napkins. He brandished it proudly in front of his prince. Noctis took the napkins with a flourish.

“Prompto, you cannot simply abscond with every napkin in the restaurant. The other patrons-“ Ignis stared, accosted with the sight of Prompto dipping his entire finger in the marshmallow foam adorning the top of his hot chocolate. Honestly, were they travelling with children? Prompto removed the now – marshmallow coated finger and dragged a stripe of the foam across Noctis’ cheek and down his nose. 

Yes. Yes they were.

“Farm boy, fetch me – oh, that doesn’t work. Hmm.” Noctis tapped his chin, pretending to think. “Farm boy, I appear to have something on my face. Clean it up, will you?” There was an altogether too-smug expression on Noct's face. Ignis clenched his teeth again. 

Gladio elbowed him, tilting his chin up at the boys. As though Ignis could avoid seeing this.

The smile in Prompto’s eyes was part teasing, part shyness. “As you wish” he said, nervousness barely hidden by the rather brazen look he was giving Noct. This would not do.

“Children.” Ignis couldn’t help it. They needed to act like grown men if they wished to be treated as such. “Will you-“ 

Prompto leaned over and licked the marshmallow fluff from Noct’s cheek, then off his nose, then from the crease between said cheek and nose. He sat back in his chair, looking proud of himself.

“Oh for heaven’s sake, figure it out you two.” A fist descended, causing plates to clink against silverware. Prompto jumped. Gladio laughed. Noctis just managed to look even more smug.

Ignis took his leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raise your hand if you watched The Princess Bride so many times as a child that you know all the words by heart.
> 
> Raise two hands if you invite all your single friends over on Valentine's Day to watch it together, because that's way better than having a stupid date anyway.
> 
> Raise three hands if you know what a VHS tape is. Raise four if you've ever accidentally taped over something because you pushed record instead of rewind.


	7. Never Talk To Strangers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote a completely self-indulgent bit of fluff about Noct, Prompto, and Ignis watching The Princess Bride together in high school, which was referenced in the last chapter. It's linked to this as Part 2 of the series. Check it out if you're interested.
> 
> The next (and last) chapter will likely be posted after Thanksgiving - I'm up against the wire at school and I've got a lot to turn in. Thanks for staying tuned!

“Lost something, have we?” 

They had. It was the car.

Gladio cast around the parking lot one more time, as though the car was a set of keys that had simply fallen out of his pocket. Ignis stood square in the center of the lot with his arms folded, tapping his feet. Prompto could see the gears turning in his head, already tracking five different ways they could return to Insomnia if it didn’t turn up.

One option was leaning against a burgundy convertible, conveniently parked in the exact same spot they had rolled into a week ago. A perfectly manicured hand traced patterns over the trunk of the car. Fingers skirted over hard metal ridges in a caress that left Prompto feeling a little sick for no discernable reason.

Prompto realized then that Noctis had disappeared. Alarms sounded in his head. He needed to communicate… something about this whole situation to Gladio.

Their new acquaintance sneered at him. “Don’t worry children, your prince is perfectly safe.” He gestured down the beach with his chin. Burgundy hair, the same color as the paint on the car that was not theirs, moved with the nod. A bit of it caught in his eyebrows. He pulled greasy locks away from his face, hand skating from metal to forehead with practiced precision. His hair settled for no more than a second before falling back to frame his face in a foreboding shroud. It did nothing to hide the distinct feeling that there were snakes crawling just beneath his skin.

Gladio made to position himself between the man and Noctis, who was approaching from the direction of the fishing pier. “Don’t know what you’re talking about” he said gruffly. His tone left no room for argument.

“No need to be rude. I was simply noticing your… predicament, and thought I might offer up a ride. I believe we are going the same direction.” The emphasis on the word “ride” and the fact that the creep was staring directly at Prompto when he said it gave the proposition a particularly predatory tone. 

There was no way in hell they were going anywhere in that car, and if nobody was going to speak up, Prompto certainly would. 

“Hey Iggy, Gladio, we’re not doing this, right? I mean, this guy is literally the definition of stranger danger.” Prompto hated the tone of uncertainty that slipped out, but his survival instinct generally took the form of “freeze” and saying something to begin with was a stretch.

“Yeah, no, we’re good” Gladio said.

At the same time, Ignis said “Certainly not.”

Noctis approached from behind Prompto, trailing beach sand across the parking lot. “Who the fuck is this guy?” he asked.

The question hung in the air for a moment, then the man smiled. His teeth were really sharp. A pointed tongue darted out, wetting lips.

“Who indeed? Go on, Prompto, introduce me to your friends.” He said the word friends like it was a sick joke. 

Wait, how did he know Prompto’s name? For that matter, how did he know who Noct was?

“Dude, I’ve never seen you before in my life.” Prompto did his best to sound brave, pissed, something. Honestly, though, when he met the man’s eyes, there was something familiar. He scrolled through all the shady individuals that lived in his neighborhood – nothing. They were all mostly harmless anyway. Prompto had been followed once or twice before, which in the city was a relatively common occurrence. Usually it was muggers looking for a victim. This guy didn’t look like any of them, either.

Creepy Dude held out a hand. Prompto felt himself inexplicably drawn toward it until he was just within reach. He felt the hand take his chin, fingernails digging into his skin. Did the guy seriously file his nails into points? It sure seemed like it. “Come now, Prompto, don’t pretend you don’t remember me. After all, friends don’t lie.”

He felt a protective arm go around his shoulders and pull him back. For a moment he thought that those fingernails would embed themselves just a little more, but the man let go, training his smile on Noctis. 

“He’s mine” Noctis growled, with an air of possessiveness Prompto hadn’t heard before. In any other circumstance it would have been terrifying, and Noct would have gotten a serious talking to about boundaries and ownership. They’d had similar talks before; Prompto was his own person, and Noctis had a thing about people he cared about that was honestly a little intense. In this moment, though, Prompto was just relieved that his friend had his back. He felt like he had been under a spell, like the man was giving him a command and he had no choice but to follow it.

There was no doubt in his mind that he would have gone anywhere with the guy had Noctis not been there to literally pull him away.

Burgundy Hair looked from Noctis to Prompto. “Ah. It’s like that, then, is it?”

“Yeah, it is.” Noctis was glaring daggers at the guy. 

Prompto caught a glimpse of Ignis, who had joined Gladio in positioning himself between the man and Noctis. Ignis’ hands were twitching, like he was resisting the urge to pull his own daggers from the armiger. His gaze matched their antagonist’s, predatory and reptilian. “As Prompto has failed to introduce you,” Ignis said softly, as though he couldn’t slit the man’s throat in the blink of an eye, “I believe it falls upon yourself to do the honors.”

A wave of an arm, like the query was insignificant. “Oh, I’m a man of no consequence.” At Ignis’ indignant expression, he added, “So sorry to disappoint. Shall we be going, then?” He walked around the passenger side, opening the door with a strangely satisfying click.

“No. We shall not.”

“Nope, don’t think so.”

“No way, dude.”

“Fuck no.”

An eyebrow raised. “No?”

A second chorus of “no” came from the group. Gladio and Ignis stepped closer, corralling the man until he was trapped against the passenger side door. If the move was meant to intimidate, it failed in its duty. He simply stared, first at Gladio, and then at Ignis, as though they were a minor annoyance.

“A pity. Although it’s probably for the best. I believe you would find the cab fare to be more than you bargained for, in the end.” 

A silent play of will led to some unspoken agreement between the three that Prompto couldn’t parse. Apparently, though, Ignis and Gladio felt it was safe to turn their backs to the man and walk away. They took up positions on either side of Noctis and Prompto, leading them back to the relative security of Galdin Quay’s restaurant. The group situated themselves on barstools, facing out toward the parking lot. They watched the burgundy car pull out, maneuver itself back to the road, and drive away, finally disappearing along a stretch of road framed by seaside cliffs.

Prompto breathed out. All the panic that had been mysteriously missing for the past 15 minutes came rushing in. He put his head in his hands and tried not to hyperventilate. Gladio leaned over him casually, matching his breath before very purposefully slowing down. Prompto let him take the lead. 

Gladio handed him a glass of water once the worst of it passed. Prompto smiled gratefully. “Thanks, buddy. I don’t know what happened. It’s been a long time since I’ve panicked.” It only ever happened during doctor’s visits, if Prompto was being honest. He wondered what exactly it was about the man that elicited such a similar response. 

He got a pat on the back for the apology. “We were all freaking out back there. You held it together just as well as the rest of us.”

Prompto looked around at his friends. Ignis was staring into the distance, steely-eyed. Noctis was – well, now that Prompto was tuned in, it was clear that Noctis was just plain checked out. He wasn’t obvious about it, but he was scrolling through some message board on his phone too fast to actually read anything. The next step would be a nodding head and drooping eyelids.

And Gladio was comforting Prompto, a coping mechanism in its own right. Prompto leaned back in his chair and looked out at the parking lot. Time to lighten the mood. “We really dodged a bullet with that one, huh guys?”

It worked. Noctis let out a barking sort of laugh and Gladio’s entire body relaxed.

Ignis, ever practical, circled around with a perfectly sensible plan. “Best if we stay here tonight and plan our return in the morning. I believe we can afford to splurge.”

A real bed, a door that locked, and an entire night to forget about the missing car. It didn’t even seem out of character for Ignis to put off planning or fret about their budget. Prompto was just grateful to be safe, and if the relief radiating off his friends was any indication, he wasn’t the only one.

In another universe, maybe, they would have taken the guy up on his offer. Maybe their fates would have been intertwined. At the very least he would be someone important and have a reason for knowing who they were. But in this one, he was just some creep they could turn down flat, secure in the knowledge that they would never have to see him again.

*****

The next morning didn’t bring any easy solutions. Gladio suspected the guy may have stolen the car. The local police promised to keep an eye out for it, but it hadn’t turned up yet, and there was no guarantee that it would. Hitchhiking was out of the question with four of them, and after the scare from yesterday, Prompto was of the opinion that it was a terrible idea anyway. There were no busses to Insomnia either, and the ferry certainly didn’t go there.

“What about a train?” Prompto mused. They’d all had enough of Galdin Quay’s expensive beachfront and were just sitting in the sand in a circle, a few paces from the boardwalk. The view had long since grown ordinary and the sand scalded Prompto’s bare legs. Noctis was burnt out on fishing, and when it came right down to it they all just wanted to be home.

“No trains either” Gladio said. He was lying down with his hands over his head, shirtless. Angry red marks where he had missed while applying sunscreen were starting to appear along his shoulders. Prompto had assumed that Gladio just wouldn’t burn, but apparently being shirtless for the entire summer didn’t protect you from UV rays.

Noctis mirrored Gladio, lying on his stomach rather than his back. He propped his chin up on his hands. “No passenger trains.” He glanced sideways over at Ignis, as though waiting for the man to divulge some mutual secret.

Ignis looked thoughtful. “Indeed.”

“What’s up, guys? You got an idea?” Prompto was not about to let them off the hook. He would hop a freaking freight train at this point.

Oh.

“Wait, seriously?”

“I believe the next eastbound train leaves,” Ignis glanced down at his watch, “in roughly three hours.”

Noctis was looking at Ignis. Ignis was looking at Gladio. When Prompto followed his gaze, he understood why. 

“And would you mind telling me why the Crown Prince’s advisor knows the freight train schedule between Galdin Quay and Insomnia?” 

Gladio was fuming.

Prompto was staying out of this one.

Ignis didn’t even look embarrassed. In fact, he was getting that testy look that he had worn after the registration incident. “You’re a smart man, Gladiolus. Don’t ask questions that you already know the answers to.”

Okay, maybe Prompto wasn’t staying out of it. Gladio and Ignis really needed to avoid killing each other if they were going to get home any time soon. “Guys, can we like, not start a fight right now? We need a way home that doesn’t involve creeps who want to do Ifrit knows what to us, and honestly a freight train sounds like a pretty solid option.” 

Ignis and Gladio sized each other up, waiting to see which one of them would break first. Finally, Ignis sighed. “I apologize, Prompto,” he said. He stilled for a moment, then reluctantly added “and Gladio. Noctis and I used to take the trains out here to go fishing before I was able to drive. It’s actually quite simple, and not as dangerous as some may assume.” He couldn’t quite keep the spite completely out of his voice, and the last bit was most definitely directed at Gladio, but as far as Prompto was concerned, it was a start. “If we just walk up the road until the cliffs flatten out, we will be able to cut across to the train yard. They don’t have a bull staffing at this end.”

“Could’ve taken me with you” Gladio grumbled, but he let it drop.

Prompto stood up. “Well, that’s settled! I gotta go stretch, can’t sit still for too long! Meet back here in an hour?”

Noctis snored his agreement. Gladio looked down at him. “Guess I’m staying here to guard the Princess. Iggy, go do… whatever it is you do to wind down.”

“Certainly.” Ignis smiled, and it was a demure, gentle smile. He wandered off toward the cliffs. Prompto hopped from foot to foot for a second, and then followed. He really didn’t want to be alone right now, and Ignis was bound to be doing something interesting.

*****

Apparently a “bull” was someone hired to walk the train yards and beat up trespassers; at least that’s what Prompto got from Ignis’ description of the title. And, in Ignis’ words, “no, being the Crown Prince of Lucis does not exclude you, Highness.” It was a punch first and ask questions later type of profession.

Train hopping was somewhat of a science. Prompto assumed they would hole up in a boxcar, but Ignis explained that the best cars for riding on were actually the ones with platforms at both ends. All four of them were not going to fit on one platform, especially with Gladio’s bulk, so they were to ride on two connected cars, facing each other on their respective platforms. Getting separated wasn’t a risk. There were no train yards between where they were departing from and Insomnia, so the cars wouldn’t be moved to another train without warning.

They crawled through the yard, sneaking at an awkward crouch just to be safe. Prompto kept a close watch out for any Gladio-sized shadows once they were inside. Blessedly, Ignis had been right – no big guys whose job it was to beat them up in sight.

Ignis found the eastbound track and Noctis scouted ahead, using the same technique he had in battle to – teleport? Warp? Jump really far? Prompto would have to ask him what it was called; anyhow, it was good for covering a lot of distance quickly, and Noctis used it to find two cars with suitable platforms coupled together. Then it was just a waiting game. They hung out near the cars for what felt like hours, playing King’s Knight on their phones. 

Prompto asked why they weren’t waiting on the platforms – it seemed easier to settle in now than waiting until the damn things were moving. Noctis’ reply was a simple “it’s more fun to run after them and hop on before the train picks up speed.”

Uh, that did not sound like fun. But Ignis was nodding along and Gladio looked like he was up for the challenge, so Prompto just tried not to make a mess of his cuticles.

After an hour they were torn and swollen, and Ignis insisted on disinfecting them on the basis that the train yard was absolutely filthy.

Noctis looked up at him and laughed. “Wow, Prom, how’d you manage to get so much dirt on you?” 

Prompto took out his phone and flipped on his camera app. He used the front facing camera as a mirror. It was awful. He had dirt smudged across his face, dust in his hair, and patches on his bare arms and all down his shirt. He looked like he had rolled in a mud pit, then laid out in the sun and let it dry.

He could play this off as cool, right? He shrugged. “Just naturally talented, I guess.”

*****

Prompto never even made it onto the train. He couldn’t run fast enough, missed the jump that would land him next to Ignis, watched the platform speed by. Noct’s hand reached for his in a desperate attempt to haul him onto the adjoining one.

Caught.

Held tight.

Slipped.

Sharp pain.

Can’t breathe.

Cant't breathe.

Darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this is my way of telling Ardyn to fuck off.
> 
> I got an in-game photo of him leaning against his car with Noct, Ignis, and Gladio surrounding him, their arms crossed over their chests in a very clear "don't-fuck-with-us" pose. Clearly they were protecting Prompto. 
> 
> Did you catch the Stranger Things easter egg? Lab children and all that. Now somebody go write a crossover.
> 
> If you're curious, the train hopping stuff is accurate. Also, don't try this at home.


	8. So This Is How It Feels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rescue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Serious CW for misgendering, use of dead names, medical trauma, and detailed hospital stuff. Take care of yourselves.
> 
> My apostrophe/quotation mark key is not working, so I had to go through the entire chapter and copy/paste them in. Let me know if I missed any.
> 
>  
> 
> [Come visit me on Tumblr.](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/itsalwaysbloodmagic)

Aranea was pissed. She was furious. Fucking Prince Charming better be ready for a brawl, because she needed to punch someone, and he was as good a candidate as any. Better than most, even.

Except the gods-damn nurses.

"Hello? Call light over here."

The hall was deserted, because of course it was.

She glanced over at the bed. Prompto was outright shivering. He kept reaching for his lines, and Aranea knew the mitts and straps were there for his own good, but fuck if she wasn't tempted to just remove them herself. The blankets she could manage. Time for a field trip.

"Hey buddy, I know you're cold. Just gotta go find the linen closet. Those damn blankets aren't worth shit, are they?"

Prompto just shivered some more. Moaned. His face scrunched up and he tried to say something. She hated seeing him like that. Yeah, Noctis was gonna get his ass kicked.

Aranea always kept her promises.

She slipped out the door. Walked down the hall. Long, twisting, too many branches for a damn hospital floor. And not a single staff person in sight.

Of course the linen closet wasn't labeled. 

A stack of blankets, then. They could all go fuck themselves. Her baby would be warm, and they could just deal with it.

The positive thing about an understaffed floor is that nobody stopped her while she pillaged the closet. She didn't have to duck into any rooms or hide under any desks to avoid nosy hospital personnel with too many arbitrary rules. It was almost too easy.

A nurse walked past, didn't even look at her. It was the one assigned to Prompto's room. Aranea jogged to catch up with her. 

The nurse watched her approach. She looked annoyed, put out, all those things nurses get when they've been on the floor too long. Aranea knew too much about that. It was the hospital's fault, really, for being understaffed. But it was also this lady's – and here Aranea looked down at the nametag attached to the scrub pocket by a lanyard - Betsy's job to be a descent fucking human being anyway. And she was doing a shit job of it.

"It's about fucking time," Aranea said. "The call light's been on for twenty minutes."

"That’s too many blankets," Betsy replied.

Fuck Betsy.

Aranea pushed passed her into the room, stopped just inside the door, balanced the blankets in one arm, and reached just to the left for the foaming hand sanitizer. "Foam in, " she called back to Betsy, just to piss her off.

Yeah, Aranea hated patients that acted like she was acting. Family was even worse. Betsy deserved it.

Prompto was still shivering. His lips were even chattering. He muttered something under his breath. She deposited the blankets on a chair, leaned over him.

"Cold," he whispered. It came out hoarse around the feeding tube.

She brushed a sweaty lock of hair out of his face. Hot, actually. Like burning up.

"Hey Betsy, " she said over her shoulder. The nurse was in the background pulling up Prompto's chart. "When was the last time you took his temp?"

Betsy's tone was conciliatory this time. It didn’t pay to stay pissed, and when it came right down to it patient care was the point, even if your bedside manner was atrocious. "Doing it now." Thermometer under tongue, wait for the beep. "Yeah, it's high. 101.6." 

Aranea watched her do a quick respiratory assessment. "Lungs sound normal. I'll get a urine sample." Betsy did just that while Aranea traced the catheter tube down to where a bag was clipped to the bed. 

"There's blood in his urine. Isn't this like the third cath you’ve done on him? Why so many?" Oh, Aranea would be so pissed if she had to deal with a family member like herself during a shift. Hats off to Betsy for mostly keeping it together.

She could hear Betsy rolling her eyes. "It's a little more complicated with her. You know, with the…" Betsy fucking gestured. 

Oh fuck no. "Uh huh. With the what?" Aranea didn’t give her a chance to say something even more stupid. "He, Betsy. It's he. His name is Prompto, and if you keep fucking this up we're gonna have a nice talk with the nurse manager." Aranea impaled her with a glare before beginning the process of layering thin, stupid cotton hospital blankets over Prompto's bed.

_____

Prompto had a urinary tract infection. As was expected. He got a dose of acetaminophen for the fever and a round of antibiotics for the infection. Betsy brought a second nurse to help with a new cath, because that was really fucking necessary. Aranea stayed and watched, hovering over them with her arms crossed over her chest.

_____

Cold, so cold. Everything white. Cold. Teeth chattering.

Prompto looked across the white landscape. Snow? Why was there snow? It was the middle of summer, right? He thought back, trying to trace a sequence of events that might have landed him in the middle of a snowy field. He couldn't remember, really. Just flashes. 

A car. The inside of a hotel room. Being way too fucking hot. He would take that over the cold, honestly. A man he didn't recognize. Something sinister.

Noct.

Falling.

There were hills, a crisp, gray sky. He was alone. He was cold.

His hand found a wrist. There was lamb's wool there, knit over the top. Gloves? Huh. He looked down. A jacket. Rather stylish. And… he reached up. A knit hat.

Where did the fancy winter gear come from? It was cut to fit, nicer than anything he'd ever be able to afford on his own. Come to think of it, he'd never owned proper winter clothes.

Maybe Noct bought it for him?

Well, that didn't make any sense. Noct would try and buy him a winter coat, sure, but he would never accept it. They'd had that talk early on, and Noctis was nothing if not respectful. Of the important stuff at least.

A dream, then.

And suddenly he was burning up. Way too hot. A mirage in the distance. A person. Who was that? He approached the figure. Himself, at twelve years old. Oh no, not this kind of dream. He had these sometimes. He hated them.

He reached out. The little girl stared at him. He stared back. They held eye contact for a very long time.

"His name is Prompto, and if you keep fucking it up…"

Wait. What was Aranea doing here? He looked around for her. She was nowhere to be found. 

He felt the dream drifting away, and for a long time he slept, undisturbed.

_____

When he woke up again there were two nurses in the room and a little table hovering at a right angle to the bed with a package on top of it. Aranea was standing at the foot of the bed, arms crossed. She was glowering. His first thought was that those poor ladies had better watch out. Aranea was nobody to mess with, and she looked murderous.

His second thought was less organized. He was still hazy. He'd woken a couple of times before, and this time felt more clear. He knew where he was, at least.

The nurses were on opposite sides of the bed. The one to his left rolled the blanket up to his waist. Followed it with his gown. Laid her hands on his thigh, and – 

Panic. He took a startled breath. It hurt. He kicked, lifted his hands. They caught on something. No, they were strapped to the bed. He was strapped down.

They had strapped him down.

His breathing picked up, short, shallow breaths to avoid the stabbing pain that showed up every time he took a gulp of air. A beeping in the background sped up until it became a kind of shrill alarm.

"You didn’t give him anything for anxiety before you started, did you?"

"It's not in the MAR."

"It should be. It was on the med list I brought with me. Let me see."

"It’s a HIPAA violation for me to show you that. She'd have to consent, and so far she hasn’t exactly been coherent."

Prompto was too panicked to really process all of this, but at least the nurse who had touched him was standing back. Someone – Aranea – had replaced his gown and blankets. He was too far gone for it to be much of a relief. He focused on Aranea's voice. The sharp, angry edge was familiar. It gave him something to hold on to.

She was yelling over the top of the bed now.

"One: you're fucking up again. Big time. Two: I'm his sister, and you have me on file as power of attorney."

"That doesn't apply now that she's awake." 

"You just told me he's not able to make his own decisions. Either ask his permission to let me see his chart or go by the paperwork we filled out when I got here, which says I have access to his medical records."

There was a long silence. Prompto reached a hand up, tried to get Aranea's attention to tell her she didn't need to be pissed on his behalf. Although he did appreciate it.

He didn't get very far. Strapped down. 

His breathing picked up again. Aranea reached for him, held one hand. 

Mittens. Odd.

"Can we take these damn things off of him?"

"She'll pull out her lines."

"Fucking stop it!" Aranea was seriously about to punch something. It was fierce. "And pull up his chart already. He's still panicking."

Silence again. The nurse was huddled over a computer screen. Aranea didn’t move from his side. His breathing slowed down.

There was a deep sigh. "You’re right. There’s an order here for lorazepam."

"Yeah, I know," Aranea said pointedly.

The nurse left the room. Aranea pulled a chair over, sat in it. She never let go of Prompto's hand. She met his eyes, all the anger draining out of her. "I'm so tired," she said. Then, after a moment, "That bitch is going down."

Prompto grinned. He'd missed her. "Sister, huh?"

"You put me in your phone as Sis. They couldn’t get ahold of your parents." She said it like it was no big deal, because it wasn’t. "I didn’t correct them."

The haze was starting to clear, what with all the yelling and the spike of panic. "How many days have I been here?"

"Too many. You’ve got some good nurses, that one is just… well, she has no business working here, to be honest."

"I’ve been unconscious for most of it."

Her smile was sarcastic. "Lucky you. Listen, you’ve got a catheter – they fucked it up, gave you a UTI, so they've gotta replace it. Also there’s the feeding tube; you know that, it's gotta suck to talk around it; the chest tube, and a couple of IVs. That’s why they’ve got the restraints on you. You kept trying to rip them out. Now that you're awake, though, there's no reason they can't take them off. Just gotta get ahold of the doc that ordered them." She paused, hesitated. "Prompto, you came in with a punctured lung and a concussion. Nobody knows how you got from the train yard to the hospital; we assume emergency services came out on Ignis’ call, but there was no way to confirm it. I finally heard from the hospital last night. Why on earth they waited to get ahold of family is beyond me. Called the boys the minute I found out, but it was like two AM. Ignis texted me this morning, they're on their way. We've been searching for you for a week." The last part came out strained, and Prompto realized Aranea was trying not to tear up. 

It was a lot to take in. He listened, and thought. "We were on our way back to Insomnia. Car was stolen – creepy guy tried to abduct us, I'll tell you about it later – Ignis decided we should hop a train. I remember being in the train yard, and not much after that. Noct's hand… that’s it."

It was maddening, having gaps in his memory. Had Noctis been trying to pull him up? Did he let go on purpose? Was he even there? Prompto dug around. He couldn’t come up with an answer.

"Yeah, they found the car. And they’re pretty sure they got your guy. Grand theft auto charges. Wait – train hopping was Ingis’ idea?" Aranea asked. Her voice pitched down. Low, dangerous. "My shit list just keeps getting longer."

_____

They gave him anxiety meds alongside another dose of pain meds. He drifted into a dreamless sleep, woke to people standing over the bed. One of them was wearing gloves. He thought maybe his legs were bare. It was fine. Cold, but fine.

_____

Light. A voice he didn’t recognize. 

"Name and date of birth?"

Prompto opened his eyes, squinted.

"Sorry about the light. I can turn the one over your bed off if you want." 

He nodded. The light went out.

The person – nurse, Prompto assumed, was waving something that looked like a ray gun in front of him. It was amusing. He laughed a little. They repeated the question. "Name and date of birth?"

"What’s that for?" Prompto asked, gesturing to the gun. It was cool. He wanted one.

Huh. His restraints were gone. He tested his arms, moved them, rotated his wrists. It felt good.

"Oh, this? It’s a scanner. For your barcode. So we know who you are."

There was a plastic bracelet on one of Prompto's wrists. He held it up to his face, squinted. He saw a barcode, and a number underneath. "This is who I am?"

The nurse chuckled. "In a manner of speaking," they said. "But I need your name too."

"Right. Uh, Prompto Argentum." He recited his birthdate too.

"Legal name?" An awkward pause. "Sorry."

Prompto wrinkled his brows. Thought hard. "I don’t understand."

"That's fine." Fingers typed away at a keyboard. "Just gotta check – can you tell me where you are?"

"Hospital."

"And the king is…"

"Friend's dad."

"Your friend's dad is the king," the nurse said, in clear disbelief. "You wanna try again?"

"Nobody ever believes me," Prompto muttered. "But fine. His name is Regis Caelum."

The nurse studied him for a minute, then turned back to the computer. "I'm putting a note in here so people refer to you as Prompto. Maybe don’t go around announcing that your friend's dad is the King of Lucis, though. Just stick to his name."

Prompto mostly managed to succeed at finger guns. His attempt at a wink was less graceful. "Will do." 

The little ray gun scanned his barcode. Nothing too cool happened. It just beeped. 

"Okay, Prompto, I'll be right back with your meds, " the nurse said. They left.

Prompto smiled to himself.

_____

"Finally. Geez. That hallway went on forever." Noct complained, leaning against the counter that served as the nurse's station. 

And it had. The hospital was built like a maze, and for a brief period Noctis had ended up wandering a series of corridors reserved for employees and medical equipment. Wrong elevator, but of course nobody told him that. Well, to be honest, he kind of knew, and instead of asking how to get back to the public part of the hospital he'd made a game of hiding in empty storage closets and dodging hospital staff.

Noctis was pretty sure he’d been lost for hours. His sense of direction was notoriously terrible, and being separated from Ignis and Gladio hadn’t helped things. When he finally met back up with them, Gladio looked downright worried, and Ignis did not spare him the expected lecture on what could have happened. To make matters worse, the hospital was a reception-free zone, so they couldn’t even get ahold of each other via cell phone.

Now, finally, here they were, on what was presumably the correct floor. The walls were painted a predictable shade of beige and a suspiciously helpful charge nurse was currently chatting with Ignis.

"-nobody by that name. Oh wait, there's a Katilyn Argentum in Room 226."

Ignis made a displeased noise, but his nod was polite, if a bit curt. "That would be him. Thank you."

They made their way to Prompto's room. Noctis did not try to quell the mounting feeling of guilt in his gut. It was only stronger for the rush of excitement and completely inappropriate flutter that had found his way into his chest. Had he not had a lifetime of practice he would be completely overwhelmed by the pool of conflicting emotions he'd been swimming in for the past week.

Something must have shown on his face because a moment later Gladio's hand was on his back, steering him. He leaned into it. To be honest, it was probably keeping him upright.

_____

There were voices in the hall. Voices that Aranea recognized. Voices that made her hand clench into a fist.

She watched Prompto's face light up. 

"Be right back," she said. "Something I gotta take care of."

Behind her came a worried "Nea", but she was already out the door.

She was only two steps into the hallway when she got her chance. She allowed that hand to make a fist, drew her arm back, let it fly. She hit the prince's jaw hard. The resounding "crack" was everything she'd hoped it would be.

"Ow, what the fuck!" Noctis said, cupping the side of his face. She thought about pulling his hand away so she could see the bruise bloom across the place where she'd made impact. She readied for a second punch instead. 

"I told you I'd kick your ass if you ever hurt him. Did you think I didn’t mean it?"

A strong hand wrapped around her forearm. She felt it twist around to her back, pinned there, immobilized. 

For the time being.

Gladio's face was close to hers. She reached out with her other hand to smack it away. He batted it down so easily it embarrassed her a little.

"You let me know when you’ve calmed down and I'll let you go," he said. His voice was calm, soothing.

Another voice joined the fray. "Hello to you too, Aranea."

She hadn’t seen Ignis there, but of course he was. He was leaning back against a wall with his arms crossed over his chest, wearing a maddeningly amused smile.

"You're next," she growled. She left no room for doubt as to whether or not she meant it.

"As I have every right to be."

Well. That stopped her cold. She peered over at him. "What? Seriously?"

"We can discuss my failure to maintain the safety of the prince and his entourage at another time. But yes, I take full responsibility for the unfortunate turn of events." 

So Ignis was pulling out the formal language. That was significant. Aranea wondered what it was about. First thing first though. She elbowed Gladio. "You can let me go now."

He tightened his grip. "No more punches?"

"No more punches." When he didn’t let her go, she added "I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep." She nodded to Noctis. "Case in point."

Gladio let her go. She opened the door to Prompto's room, then turned to usher the boys in. Gladio and Ignis went in first. Noctis, she was surprised to see, was hesitating, eyes focusing mostly on his shoes, occasionally shooting an uncertain glance at the door.

"Go on, Prince Charming, you’ve got a princess to woo." Well, if that didn’t bring a blush to the poor boy's face. She smiled wickedly, held the door open the rest of the way. "He's been waiting for you."

_____

Aranea waited outside the room for a while. She needed a moment to calm down, and she figured the guys would appreciate being able to say hi to Prompto without her present. The truth was, she couldn’t stay mad at them for long. They'd been Prompto's friends since freshman year of high school, and by proxy they were her friends too. Plus, she knew they'd been worried sick about him. She hadn't seen them, but they had all taken turns calling hospitals trying to track Prompto down, and had been in communication about it on and off through the week. So as much as she was cruising for an outright fight, she planned on keeping herself in check. Plus, she'd made her point.

Ignis had probably resigned from his position in shame already. He took his post so very seriously. It was a good thing, too.

_____

"…so I've tended my resignation," Ignis said. He was seated by the side of the bed, staring down at his hands.

Noctis propped himself up on his elbow. "What? No!" He found himself in an awkward position, lying on his side with one elbow supporting his upper body weight, staring at Ignis across the top of Prompto. The hospital bed was small and it was hard for both him and Prompto to be occupying it at the same time. His back was going to be in bad shape later, but but he didn’t care. He felt Prompto's fingers interlace with his and squeeze. He pulled his hand away for the time being, gave Ignis his full attention. Ignis needed to know this was serious.

"Noct, I have put you in danger countless times, and I didn’t consider the fact that train hopping could have such dire consequences until Prompto was hurt. He almost died, Noctis. It could have been you. How many times did we ride that line out to Galdin Quay to go fishing?"

"I don’t care, " Noctis said. He was really upset now. "Ignis, I can't lose you. You've been in my life since I was six years old. You're my closest, oldest friend." Shit, had that hurt Prompto's feelings? He looked down, brushed a strand of hair away from Prompto's face. "Sorry, Prom. It's just… It's Ignis, y'know?"

"Don't worry about it. I get it." Prompto snuggled closer, turned his body to face Noct's and buried his face in his chest. The tube attached to his side stretched a little too far, and the sealed chamber at the end threatened to tip. Ignis caught it in time, steadying it. "I'm just glad you're here."

Something in Noct's stomach did backflips. He ignored it. "Ignis. Did you already turn in the paperwork?"

Ignis didn’t answer for a moment. Then he sighed and said, "No. I requested it as soon as we arrived home. HR is aware. It’s all ready to go, and I plan on submitting it and discussing the matter with your father on Monday."

"I won't allow it." Noctis did his best to sound dead serious.

"Noctis, this isn’t a joke."

"No, it's not. And I won't allow you to resign. I order you-"

"Don’t you dare." Ignis' tone matched his own.

"As the Prince of Lucis, I order you to remain in my service. You may not turn in any paperwork. You may not discuss the matter with my father, nor anybody else aside from Aranea and the people in this room."

Ignis gazed sternly at Noctis. "Highness, think carefully before you use your position as leverage. You know I must to comply with your orders."

"I'm aware." Noctis kept eye contact. He wasn’t letting Ignis resign over this. He wasn’t letting Ignis resign over anything, ever.

"We will discuss this –"

"No. We're done discussing it. You are dismissed, " Noctis said. And like that, the conversation was over. Ignis stood, gave him one last disappointed look, and walked out the door. 

Noctis hardly registered Aranea walking in a moment later. He was too busy holding onto Prompto. He was never letting his friend go again. The past week had been the hardest of his life, and, well, it had made some things abundantly clear.

He wiggled down until the two of them were face to face, cupped Prompto's chin in his hands, gentle as he could. "Prom, I," he started, but the words wouldn't come. He tried to convey what he was feeling, what had been building over the past week, really over years and years, with his eyes instead. He wasn't sure he was getting his point across and he was too scared – maybe not ready – to do anything overt. He was going to try, though, even if it wasn't today. He'd get there.

And yeah, Prompto wasn't getting it, because Prompto was smoothing down his hair, running his hand gently across the mark Aranea had left when she punched him, and shushing him. "It's okay, Noct. I'm not upset. Just – tell me, were you worried about me?" There was a little bit of uncertainty in the question, like maybe Noctis hadn’t cared at all, and it gave the mess of feelings in his chest a sour edge.

"Of course I was. How could you ever think otherwise?" Noctis whispered. He would take it, if this was where they were at. He held Prompto as close as he could, flattened his hands across his back, and basked in the simple fact that he was alive.

_____

Ignis brushed past Aranea in the hall without looking at her.

Well, they would talk later.

Aranea went into the room without knocking. They were family, after all.

She was unsurprised to find Noctis curled up in the bed with Prompto. The boys were carrying on a conversation in tender, hushed whispers. She left them to it, approaching Gladio instead, who was standing by the whiteboard that listed Prompto's information, the name of his nurse and CNA, and the interventions planned. It was the standard stuff – turn, cough, deep breathe, use the incentive spirometer, and so forth. They'd taken the feeding tube out earlier in the day, but he still had the chest tube. He was mobile and supposed to be doing laps around the floor on a regular basis. It depended on how lucid he was – he was still drifting into a restless kind of half – sleep whenever he got a dose of painkillers – but he was consistent about it, determined to get out of the hospital as soon as possible. She didn't blame him.

Since the nurses realized that she was also an RN they had mostly left them alone except for meds and bi-hourly rounds. She was doing most of the stuff on the board with him, keeping him on track. She was a bit of a task master but Prompto didn’t need it. He usually reminded her when it was time to roll.

It was irresponsible of them and she could make a complaint, but honestly she'd rather be the one to do it. And they were getting their asses handed to them anyway with the way they were treating him.

Speaking of which…

Gladio was studying the board. Shit, someone had gone and erased the name "Prompto" again and replaced it with his legal name, changed the gender marker back to F. She felt a bit of rage flare up again, and, well, Gladio was the closest target.

"That gonna be a problem?"

Gladio eyed her, not turning his head. "Why would it be?"

That settled her right back down. She looked from Gladio reading the board over to Noctis on the bed, thought about Ignis politely extricating himself from the room with that guilty as hell look on his face. Her anger dissipated. She took Gladio's arm, and when she had his attention she turned him to face the bed. "Better give them some privacy," she said. Then, because she couldn’t help it, she added "But just so you know, all three of you are still on my shit list."

Gladio chuckled. They slipped out the door as quietly as they could.

_____

A nurse came in. The meds were cold when they hit his blood stream. He slept, woke, slept, woke, slept, woke. Every time he woke up Noctis was there, a warm, familiar presence pressed against his chest. 

He woke again, bleary and confused, looked down at raven black hair mussed against a pale face. Noctis scooted so their faces were level. He did it every time Prompto woke up, and every time it set off a chain reaction, a downright magical sensation that rippled its way through his veins and made his skin tingle.

He was too out of it to feel anxious about just how deep he’d fallen. 

Instead he grinned, bleary and sweet. "So this is how it feels to be rescued by a prince."

Noctis just laughed. "Go back to sleep, beauty."

Prompto didn’t know what Noctis was talking about. He was the beautiful one. 

"I’m s’posed to kiss you though. That’s how it's magic."

"Think you’ve got that backwards." Soft hands found his face for the hundredth time that day. 

"No, I’m right. I kiss the prince, turn ’em into a frog."

Another amused laugh. "Something like that."

Prompto tried, he really did, but he didn’t quite get there. A clumsy, drooling mouth met a cheek instead, smearing across it. He pressed his eyebrows together. "didn’t work," he said.

Fondness, then, across Noct's face. A hand in his hair. "Hey. We’ll have plenty of time for that later, yeah?"

"Yeah," Prompto mumbled, already drifting back off. A half-memory came back to him, and he forced his eyes back open. "You still love me though?"

"Huh?" Noctis asked, his own voice heavy with sleep.

"You still love me," Prompto repeated. "Even though." He raised his arm up, revealing where the barcode and his full, legal name were printed across a plastic bracelet. The arm flopped back down a moment later.

Noctis pulled him close. He pressed their foreheads together. "Of course," he said softly, voice full of promises. "Always."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everybody, we're finished!
> 
> Do you want an epilogue? I wasn't planning on doing one, but I have some ideas. If so, the options are:
> 
> 1) A few days to a week after being released from the hospital  
> 2) 6 months later - established relationship  
> 3) Years down the line with some kids in tow, because how cute is that?
> 
> So let me know! Thanks for reading!
> 
>  [Come visit me on Tumblr.](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/itsalwaysbloodmagic)


	9. Epilogue - Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have some fluff. 
> 
> I recommend keeping this tab up while you play Episode Ignis, and when you’ve had enough crying into your pillow you can read it and everything will be magically better.
> 
> I will be doing a second epilogue because I was just so excited about the idea. What will the second one be about? Why, chocobos and babies, of course.
> 
> And on that note, all aboard the Promptis train, where everything is dreamy and nothing bad ever happens.
> 
> I will give a content warning, because when you have trauma from the medical system it impacts your sex life. So take care, lovelies. Also note the rating went up to mature.
> 
> [Come visit me on Tumblr.](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/itsalwaysbloodmagic)

"Noct, are you sure about this?" Prompto asked. He sat up in the bed and wrapped the blanket around him, gathering his wits as much as he could. It was hard to look dignified without a stitch of clothing on, and while the blanket was mostly covering him, his right knee kept flopping out without ceremony. 

He felt like he needed a little dignity for this conversation.

Noctis, apparently, didn’t. He remained firmly planted on his stomach with his head turned to the side, hair a mess of tangles for having spent the first half of the day drifting off between bouts of sex and significant, giddy, sometimes terrifyingly honest confessions. He was totally naked and currently lying on top of what remained of the sheets.

"Why wouldn’t I be? Prom, I’m in love with you, and I am beyond pissed at myself for taking so long to realize it. I almost lost you once, I’m not about to do it again." Noct said it like it was no big deal – I’m in love with you – like they hadn’t been tiptoeing around the idea of maybe, possibly having a crush on each other just a little over a month ago. He said it like it was totally natural to go from totally platonic best friends of four-plus years to head over heels in love in less than a week; like talking about moving in together, hell, talking about marriage in a more than maybe-someday kind of way, was the natural place to go from here. 

Prompto pulled the blanket tighter. He was happy to have finally been able to kiss Noct after years of pining, was thrilled when Noctis wanted to call it an all-out relationship, but even that was too much for him so soon. He kind of just wanted to stay in the hey-it’s-fun-making-out-with-you phase, at least for a while. But Noctis, in all his wisdom, came out guns blazing. His best friend turned lover wanted it all, right now. Because he was in love with Prompto, and apparently when Noct fell in love he fell hard.

"That’s fine, it’s just, really, Noct, marriage? I mean, we aren’t even calling each other boyfriends yet."

"Until you’re ready," Noctis corrected him. That had been part of the "relationship" conversation. Prompto would let him know when he was ready to call what they were doing a relationship. He wanted it, just not so soon, and Noctis had been okay with that.

His endless patience, his certainty that it would all come together the way he wanted it to, was driving Prompto a little mad. Like, what did he do to deserve this mad.

"Until I’m ready."

"And when you are, you’ll move in with me."

"Noct -"

"And if we’re still dating in three years, we’ll get married."

"Noct. Noctis. Look at me."

Noctis looked at Prompto, and that right there was enough to floor him. He found himself speechless, which was entirely unhelpful, because he really needed to be setting some boundaries right about now.

"Noctis. I love you. I’m down to try this. But I can’t think about marriage in three years. Hell, I can’t even think about moving in with you yet. It’s only been a week since – I mean, just - do you understand?"

He really needed Noctis to understand, because when it came right down to it he was afraid he was gonna mess this up, was going to completely miss his chance if he kept turning Noctis down.

He supposed that was similar to how Noct was feeling. Go big or go home, right?

He didn’t want to go home.

And, well, here was proof that things were still shaky. Here was Noctis, turning away from him, rolling over on his side and drawing his knees up to his chest. Naked, probably cold, but not asking Prompto to share the blanket currently engulfing him to the point of being comical, because Prompto turning him down just hurt too damn much.

Prompto unwound said blanket and draped half of it over Noctis, scooted in until they were back to front. He tucked his arms around Noct’s waist and pulled back so their thighs and hips were flush, then hugged him hard, whispering soothing words into his ear.

"Hey, Noct, its okay. I wanna try. I just gotta move slow, okay? I love you. I’m not just saying it to agree or something. I love you. I have since, like, the day we met." Prompto kept his voice low and comforting. He felt Noctis go from tense to something a little more relaxed, felt him roll over and push his forehead against Prompto’s collarbone. Prompto kissed the top of his head and soothed down his hair, petting him like a cat. He absentmindedly gave Noctis some scritches along his shoulder blades and behind his ears. He got the desired response – Noctis moved so he could get a particularly itchy spot on his back, melted into the touch, and finally picked his head up to meet Prompto’s eyes.

"Promise?"

Prompto kissed him softly. He started with the tip of his nose, then each cheekbone in turn, then once, chastely, on the lips.

"Promise."

_____

It had been a whirlwind of a week. 

Prompto was whisked away to Noctis’ apartment the day he got back from the hospital.

He hadn’t been home since they’d left Insomnia, the trunk piled with camping gear, riding high on the excitement of a post-high school road trip.

His parents hadn’t called at any point. It wasn’t a surprise, although Prompto did find himself wondering if they were all right, which was an ironic way to look at the situation when it came right down to it. He figured he should call them, but he kept forgetting.

Turns out it’s hard to remember to do much of anything when your best friend has you up against the wall and you’ve just figured out together that you can come from nipple stimulation alone.

So yeah, that happened. 

And then it happened again.

And again.

And it didn’t stop happening.

They blasted right through every wall Prompto had constructed, walls built over years and years of silently pining over his best friend, over years and years of being uncertain about how sex was supposed to even work for people like him. Boundaries about sex and love and the order in which things were supposed to happen just didn’t exist with Noctis. He lost his virginity the first time they kissed. He didn’t even think about it, it was just the way things were meant to happen. That was that, no looking back. 

It wasn’t easy. There were places on Prompto’s body that he didn’t know existed, places that were just fine if they were touched in most ways, but that were very much not fine when a hand landed wrong or a too-tight grip went on for longer than was comfortable or the energy was just a little bit off. He could go from turned on to panicking in less time than it took him to process that Noct’s hand was there, in that place. Or that place. Or that other place.

Noct always stopped, backed up, asked him if he wanted to be held. Sometimes they just breathed together. Sometimes he buried himself in Noctis, closed his eyes, and breathed in his scent until nothing else existed. Sometimes he sat up and Noctis left just long enough to bring him a glass of water or some tea.

And then they would start again, tentative. Stop if they needed to.

So he had the hospital to thank for that. When he thought properly about it (he preferred not to) it probably went beyond the hospital, back to the routine check-ups of his preteen years.

They figured out together how their bodies worked, what they liked. Prompto liked to top. A lot. And, conveniently, Noct could really take it. Prompto liked a cock in his mouth. Like, really liked it. Like, if there wasn’t a cock in his mouth there needed to be real soon. Like, if your cock is somewhere else I’ll just suck on my own fingers while I touch myself and imagine it’s your cock. 

Yeah, Prompto liked that.

And Noctis – Noctis liked his hair pulled. He liked to be pushed down on his stomach and fucked until he couldn’t walk. He liked Prompto to take him clear down his throat, swallow around him, and stay like that until they were both gasping for air. He liked being jerked fast and rough, liked it when there was just a little bit of friction, liked that more than a wet palm when it came right down to it.

Given the high levels of sappiness Noctis was prone to, given the talk of love and moving in together and spending the rest of their lives together, one would think that he would be slow and gentle in bed, that he would whisper sweet nothings and come with Prompto’s name on his lips. 

Nope. Noctis was a slut, and he wanted Prompto to call him one. Begged for it, to be precise.

On day two they went to the local queer sex store and bought a strap-on and the biggest dildo Noct thought he could take. On the shopkeeper’s advice they added a series of butt plugs that moved up in size from smallest to largest, because apparently it was ill-advised to start with something bigger than an actual cock.

Day one: declaration of love. First kiss. Loss of virginity. 

Day two: Strap-on and butt plugs.

Day three: The relationship talk.

Day six: The three-year plan.

Frankly, it was overwhelming. And Noctis was kind and understanding and willing to go as slow as Prompto wanted to. 

He wouldn’t have it any other way.

_____

Noctis was asleep and Prompto was kind of just… watching him, when he heard a key click in the front door. 

Was watching your boyfriend sleep a creepy thing to do?

Best to table that question.

"Hey Noct," he whispered between butterfly kisses, "Iggy’s here. Wake up."

"Mmf," Noctis responded, but he turned his face up so Prompto’s eyelashes were fluttering against his cheek. Prompto followed the last of the butterfly kisses up with actual playful ones that started off soft and built until they were loud little smacks all over his face.

Iggy’s footsteps rang through the house. Prompto could hear him walking between the living room and the kitchen, stopping periodically. He supposed he was picking up some of the clutter that had built up over the past couple of days, probably with the ulterior motive of giving the two of them a moment to collect themselves.

They had dinner plans. Ignis had not, in fact, resigned his position. He was bound to uphold anything commanded of him by Noctis, and the fact that Noct had demanded he stay in his service was still a sore spot for the two of them. They were trying to work it out in their own way, which seemed to involve a series of dinners and movie nights and quick coffees grabbed between meetings where neither one of them talked a whole lot. There were plenty of tense moments. Things would be moving along just fine and then they would inevitably trip over a power dynamic neither wished to acknowledge. Their commitment to simply be in each other’s presence until the worst of it dissipated seemed to be working, though. In other words, things were getting better.

Ignis had announced pretty much right away that his role would be changing dramatically from here on out. Instead of overseeing the prince’s well-being, he would be focusing on his duty as Noct’s advisor, helping with strategy and decision making as it related to his duties to the crown. This would allow Noctis to gain a sense of independence, Ignis said, which was long overdue. 

Which meant that in addition to healing such a newly minted wound, they were working on redefining their friendship, much of which had been dependent on the caretaking role Ignis had adopted over the years.

So Noctis was ordering the pizza tonight.

The footsteps approached the bedroom door, followed by a short knock. "Noctis? Prompto? Are you two decent?" Ignis called.

"Uh, just a second!" Prompto answered. He clambered over the side of the bed, pulling the blankets off Noctis in the process and wrapping them around himself. "Noct! Get up, dude! We gotta get dressed." Prompto cast around for his boxers, found them wedged between the footboard and the mattress, and pulled them on under the blanket. Noctis was already wearing underwear, and Prompto decided that was good enough. Ignis had certainly seen him in less.

Prompto pulled open the door and squinted into the suddenly too-bright hallway. Ignis blinked back at him. He realized that maybe wrapped in a blanket with your boxers on underneath didn’t count as decent when you’d been fucking like, fifteen minutes ago. Like maybe that was a little bit obvious.

Ignis seemed unfazed, though. His lips twitched into what could maybe be considered an amused sort of smile before settling back into a neutral position. "Did I arrive too early?" he asked. In Ignis language, the question was meant to be teasing.

"No, not at all. Noct’s uh, still waking up, but here, lets go order pizza." Prompto looked down at himself. "Ah, I guess I should put some more clothes on?"

"It’s no bother," Ignis responded, turning to walk back down the hall to the living room.

"Okay. Oh, wait, just a sec, gotta grab my phone."

Prompto retreated to the bedroom and spent a good three minutes searching for his phone before he finally found it in a drawer by the bedside table. It most certainly wasn’t plugged in, and he had 20% battery life remaining. He debated hunting down the cord, but he didn’t want to keep Ignis waiting any longer, and if they ordered pizza right away it wouldn’t be a problem. He would plug it in after.

Noctis, by this time, was sitting up in the middle of the bed looking confused. Prompto crawled over the bed with the intention of giving him a quick peck, only to be dragged back down on top of him. This put them in a predicament because it was a really comfortable position and Prompto had to drop his phone to do it and also they were both a little turned on. In the end they made out for probably longer than they should when a guest was waiting patiently in the living room. Prompto finally extricated himself and, luckily for him, located his phone again after just a few seconds of searching (although the panic was real). He wrapped the blanket back around himself and threw a pair of sweats and a T-shirt at Noctis.

"See you out there in a sec, yeah? Don’t go back to sleep."

Noctis tried to make a face at him, but it came out a sleepy smile. 

"Can’t. You’ve got the blanket."

"Cool, I’ll remember that for next time," Prompto said sweetly. He blew Noctis a kiss and let himself out into the hall.

He forgot all about getting dressed, but he had his phone and the comforter. That counted for something, right?

Prompto wandered out into the living room and plopped down on the couch. Ignis was in the kitchen, doing something that looked suspiciously like chopping. "Iggy, we’re ordering pizza. Whatever you’re doing, stop it. Come out here and tell me what toppings you want," Prompto said. Old habits die hard, he supposed.

"Just thought I’d make a quick salad," Ignis called. "It should only take a minute."

"Whatever makes you happy, dude." Prompto figured it would make Noctis grumble, and that was worth it for how cute he was when he grumbled about vegetables. "Maybe throw some chickpeas in? I hear Noct loves those."

He heard a snort from the kitchen. There would most definitely be chickpeas in the salad.

_____

They ordered the pizza (chicken and mushroom with pesto sauce for the two of them, because Iggy was fancy like that, and a small pepperoni and pineapple, because Noctis wouldn’t eat salad but somehow pepperoni and pineapple was an acceptable pizza combination), and chatted while Noctis took a shower.

"So you two are official now," Ignis asked. Just out there like that, as though it were no big deal.

"Yeah. I mean, I guess so. He brought it up, like, three days into being home. Well, here at least. I haven’t actually been home."

Ignis ignored this. As per usual, Prompto wondered briefly if it was normal for someone to be so utterly distant from their parents that they don’t even call them to let them know they’re back from a road trip, let alone that they’d suffered a multiple week-long hospital stay and almost died. Whenever he brought it up, though, his friends would change the subject or just go on with the conversation as though he hadn’t said anything. Sometimes Prompto wished they would acknowledge it, but he didn’t know how to ask for it, so he let them go on pretending like his parents just didn’t exist.

"And you’ve just now agreed to give it a go."

"Yesterday." Prompto wondered when Noctis had had a chance to talk to Ignis about this. 

"Would you mind if I asked you what it was that stopped you from agreeing right away?" Ignis asked. The question was gentle, but Prompto couldn’t help but wonder if Ignis was feeling protective. He supposed it didn’t matter – Aranea was certainly protective of Prompto. And he couldn’t see Ignis punching anybody, so he figured he had less to fear than Noctis did when it came right down to it.

"It just – it all moved so fast, you know? Like, we were just friends for so long, and then I figured out I wanted more than that but Noct just seemed so totally clueless, or indifferent, or uninterested… and I wrote it off as not really possible, and then when it became clear he had feelings for me it was – he went from zero to one hundred overnight, Ignis. He wants me to move in with him." Prompto paused, took a breath, let it out and said the scary part. "Iggy, he wants to get married."

If Ignis was surprised, he didn’t let it show. Instead, he calmly took a sip of his coffee and watched Prompto for a moment before responding.

"Yes, well, His Highness doesn’t do anything by halves."

Prompto snorted. "You can say that again."

A sparkle lit up in Ignis’ eyes. Oh no. He wasn’t going to – 

"His Highness doesn’t do anything by halves," Ignis said again with a smirk.

"Oh my gods, shut up Iggy!" Prompto said, giggling. He batted at Ignis playfully. The blanket fell from around his shoulders. He couldn’t properly care, and Ignis certainly didn’t seem to, so he let it fall and subjected Ignis to what amounted to the world’s cutest slap fight.

Once they’d calmed down a bit and settled back into their respective sides of the couch, Ignis gave him the clear, piercing, serious look that meant Prompto was about to receive a nugget of older-brother-Iggy wisdom. "Prompto, don’t be afraid to take your time. Noctis will still be there, I assure you," he said. He pushed his glasses back up his nose from where they’d fallen while the two of them were horsing around.

"Yeah," Prompto said, "He told me as much."

"And he meant it."

"Meant what?" Noctis’ voice echoed from the hallway. He shuffled into the room in the clothes Prompto had so carefully thrown at him earlier. 

"That you’ll still be here when Prompto is ready for you."

Prompto blushed. They were all pretty direct with each other, but this was over the top, right?

"Yeah I will. But he knows that, don’t you Prom?" Noctis came over and landed himself in Prompto’s lap, sprawling over him to rest his feet on Ignis. It was a comfortable position, one that Iggy and Noctis had perfected over many years of being friends, and that Prompto had become a part of when he started earnestly hanging out with the prince. It was easy, and familiar, and it made Prompto feel like he was home. 

Prompto wrapped his arms around Noct’s middle and hugged him from behind. "Yep," he said, hiding his smile in his boyfriend’s shoulder blade. He did know it, and it made him happier than he had any right to be.

_____

Prompto traced one finger around the rim of his cappuccino. He probably shouldn’t have ordered caffeine this late in the day. He took a sip, upsetting the very carefully constructed heart that the barista had put so much time into. And yes, he’d already taken a photo of said heart and posted it to Mooglegram.

He scalded his tongue. Damn it.

Gladio was late, but that was to be expected. Heck, Prompto was late. Gladio had probably allowed himself fifteen minutes extra to compensate for the fact that Prompto was perpetually late.

He’d tried for most of his life to be on time, but eventually he gave up and just told people off the bat to expect him twenty minutes later than any agreed-upon meeting time. Being on time mattered to him, it really did. He was just scattered – he’d start to get ready at the right time, go to head out the door, and without fail realize he had no idea where his keys were at, or his phone wasn’t in his pocket, or his wallet wasn’t where he’d had it last because he’d pulled it out to buy something online and so it was on the kitchen counter instead. So yeah, his friends adapted.

Today, though, he was just nervous enough to be early.

So far Ignis and Gladio and Aranea had been really patient with Prompto’s need to process everything Noctis. It was easier than processing his terrible hospital visit, or the fact that his friends put him in real fucking imminent life-threatening danger by pressuring him to train hop, or the fact that Noctis in particular felt guilty beyond what was reasonable. Each one of them had decided the fault rested directly on their shoulders, and each one of them had taken Prompto aside to apologize profusely for their role in it. Prompto was frankly pretty sick of it. It wasn’t his burden to bear, and while he appreciated it, he kind of wished they would just go see a therapist or something.

He also really hated talking about it.

So it was easier to talk about Noctis. And he needed advice. Like really needed advice. He was way out of his depth here. It was wonderful, and he wanted everything all at once, but he was way less sure than Noct and talking it through with folks kept the situation from building up in his mind and swirling around until he became panicky instead of so happy he could float away. He’d experienced the panic once or twice. Noctis had held him through it, turned on a movie, understood enough to stop talking about the future for a little while. Prompto preferred floating, and talking to people helped. 

So here he was, waiting for Gladio, with a big question hanging over him. He figured if anyone could answer it, it would be Gladio.

They had always hung out, but until the road trip they hadn’t spent much time alone together. Maybe once or twice to get a beer or go do something that Noct wasn’t into, like check out an art exhibit. Gladio was always willing to listen and Prompto did talk to him about his life, but not, like, in a deep way. Prompto wasn’t sure if he’d gotten closer to the guy since the road trip or if the accident had jump-started their friendship, but if he wasn’t with Noct or Aranea he tended to be with Gladio these days. Gladio was fun and he always seemed to know what to do when Prompto got caught up in his head.

Prompto saw Gladio enter the coffee shop and gave him a little wave from where he was sitting. He ordered at the counter and when he walked over he was pinching the handle of a tiny cup containing a shot of espresso between his oversized thumb and forefinger.

It was cuter than any right to be, and Prompto laughed openly about it.

"Hey big guy, is that for you or did you order it for the resident coffee shop mouse?"

"What’s wrong? Something funny?" Gladio asked, playing up an attitude of mock-offense.

Prompto snorted, and just like that his anxiety was gone. "Your face," he said, altogether too pleased with himself. 

Gladio took a dainty sip of his espresso, holding up a pinky as he did so. "So, what did you need to talk about so bad that you texted me -" he set his cup down and fished his phone out of his pocket, opening up the text conversation between himself and Prompto, "’- MAYDAY, MAYDAY, THIS IS AN EMERGENCY, MEET ME FOR COFFEE, LIKE RIGHT NOW,’" Gladio raised one eyebrow and went on to read the next text, "’Or whenever, just when you have time, I mean, if you have time, it’d be cool to meet up.’" The eyebrow went back down, but the amused look remained. "Oh, and here’s the final one: ’If that’s okay’".

Gladio finished totally humiliating Prompto and tucked his phone away. "Prompto, buddy. It’s always okay. We’re friends. You’d be there if I needed to talk, right?"

"Yeah, I guess," Prompto said. He was mortified, but Gladio was right.

"So, start talking."

"Um, okay." Prompto was suddenly anxious again. He steeled himself and managed to look Gladio in the eye.

"How do you know when you’re ready to move in with someone?"

Gladio let out a half-laugh, clearly thought better of it, and coughed instead.

"Hey, you’re laughing at me! Not cool, man. It’s hard for me to ask this stuff."

"Sorry," Gladio said, "That wasn’t helpful." He paused, collected his thoughts. "It’s just that, well, if you ask me, you’re only gonna get one kind of answer."

Prompto knew that. It was why he had approached Gladio. The man was a serial monogamist. Girlfriend after girlfriend moved in after exactly two months of dating, lasted varying amounts of time, and moved out when they broke up. Some even stayed roommates with him for a while before moving out. That particular detail baffled all of his friends. Nobody was going to say as much to Gladio, though. 

"I mean, what I’m gonna tell you is pretty predictable. Which leads me to think there’s a certain answer you want. And so…"

"…why am I even asking?" Prompto said. He couldn’t keep the self-deprecating tone out of his voice.

"Hey, none of that," Gladio admonished. "You’re a good guy, Prompto. You know yourself. And I can tell, right up front, that you’re not ready yet. You wanna know how to tell when it’s time? You can just tell. Either it’s practical; you’re spending so much time together that hauling back and forth between two houses just starts to be a pain in the ass; or you miss them so much when you aren’t around that it starts to take a toll on the relationship. The idea might make you anxious, but actually doing it should make things easier, not harder."

"Oh," Prompto said. He thought about it. The idea did make him anxious, and it sounded like that might not go away, at least at first. He knew he wasn’t ready, though. He just didn’t know why. That was the part bothering him.

Gladio reached out and touched Prompto on the arm. "Buddy. Don’t check out on me. We’re still talking, right?"

Prompto realized he’d been sitting there not answering for long enough that Gladio had noticed.

"Right," he said, smiling weakly.

"So what’re you thinking?"

"I don’t know." He took another moment to turn the bit that was bothering him into a question. "Just, and I know you can’t answer this, but why aren’t I ready?" 

Gladio looked thoughtful. "You’re right, I can’t answer that. I can tell you what I see, though." He tapped the table with one big finger to punctuate his points. "For one, it’s been how long?"

"He asked a week in. Six days, actually."

Gladio whistled. "You’re counting days."

"Why, is that weird?" Should Prompto think that’s weird?

"Naw, nothing’s weird in relationships. They’re all their own beasts. The people in them tend to make up the rules as they go, and everybody pretends there’s a standard way you’re supposed to go about things, but I’ve yet to have two relationships that unfold in exactly the same way."

Except for the part where they all move in two months down the line, Prompto thought. He didn’t say it out loud.

Instead he said, "Yeah, okay".

"So six days. Prompto, that’s really soon. Forget what I said about relationships having their own rules for a sec. Anybody would be freaked out by that. I don’t care if you’ve been in love since grade school."

He kinda had, but he wasn’t planning on ever telling anybody that.

"And on top of that, this is your first relationship, yeah?"

Prompto nodded.

"So here you are, six days into your first relationship, and this guy, this guy that you’ve known forever, that you trust implicitly, is like hey, lets live together and maybe down the road we’ll get married and have babies. And you’re not okay with that. As a matter of fact, it kind of freaks you out. You wonder why, because you should be, right? You love him and you trust him and you are just thrilled that this is even happening. But you’re scared, so you say no, and you feel guilty for it, and its just one big ball of mess." Gladio leaned back and drained the rest of his espresso. It had to have gone cold by now. "Am I close there?" He let the questions sit, gave Prompto time to mull it over.

Something in the middle of all that had caught Prompto’s attention. Prompto hadn’t brought up the part about getting married. Interesting that Gladio had slipped up and mentioned it. It was fine, though. He was sure Noct had talked to Gladio about them, he expected it. After all, here he was, talking to Gladio, and Noctis deserved to be able to do the same. Babies, though? Noctis hadn’t said anything about babies. And that was a whole other level of terrifying. If Noctis wanted kids, they needed to talk about it, because, well, Prompto couldn’t do that for him.

That right there could be a deal breaker.

He didn’t want to be thinking about kids at all right now. Hell, this conversation was supposed to be about moving in together.

He was so damn bad at poker face. Gladio was too, turned out, because when Prompto met his eyes again, Gladio was wearing the wow-I-just-fucked-up-big-time expression.

"Babies?" Prompto managed to choke out.

Gladio rubbed the back of his neck. "Uh, yeah. You should, um, probably talk to Noct about that one."

Prompto didn’t say anything for a long time. Just looked down at his forgotten cappuccino, the heart split by a line of espresso dragged across the top of the beverage by the impatient sip he had taken earlier. Finally, he managed a simple "yeah." He cleared his throat. "Hey, can we change the subject? How’s uh, Cass doing?"

Cass was just fine. Gladio filled the rest of their time together with his own dreamy love stories, dwelling on the cute, nonthreatening parts. Prompto was grateful for it, and they left with plans for another coffee date typed neatly into their calendars.

_____

Prompto finally got up the nerve to talk to Noctis about, well, babies. He mulled over it quite a bit between the coffee date with Gladio and when he finally brought it up. He knew that Noctis could tell something was on his mind, and he was really surprised that he hadn’t been asked about it. Maybe Noctis was just committed to giving him space to figure things out on his own. 

He finally decided he just had to do it. Otherwise they were never going to talk. Or worse, Noctis would catch him unawares and Prompto would just have to give the requisite "I’m not ready yet" answer. So he swallowed whatever uncertainty was still rolling around inside and spit it out, all in one go. 

"Hey Noct, you know I can’t have kids, right?"

Noctis looked over at Prompto in surprise. They were in Noct’s living room, each engrossed in their own activities. Prompto was lying on the floor flipping through a book of portraits he’d found at the library and Noctis was sitting cross legged on the couch reading a proposal for transit funding.

"You want kids?" Noct asked, like it was totally normal to start talking about kids two weeks into a relationship.

It might be a casual conversation for Noctis; no, casual wasn’t the right word; expected? But it certainly wasn’t for Prompto. He still hadn’t decided whether he even wanted to move into Noct’s place, and while Noctis might be on the three-year plan, Prompto was still on day sixteen.

His completely ineloquent response was a direct result of being unprepared for the conversation that he had not-so-accidentally started. He really should have expected the question. Because where was somebody supposed to go when the love of their life turns to them and asks them about kids? 

"Uh, I mean no?" Prompto stopped, shook his head. "Shoot – lemme try again. To be honest, I haven’t really thought about kids. It’s never been an option for me. So. Yeah. But I figured, you kinda need to have an heir, right? And, well, if we’re talking long – term…" It wasn’t exactly the reason Prompto had brought up the subject, but he wasn’t about to tell Noctis that Gladio had ratted him out.

He was also completely unprepared to be talking long-term, but that door had been opened a while ago, and Prompto was ready to dip his toe in. Not that he had admitted that even to himself yet. Maybe.

Noctis’ face lit up with the words "long-term" and it made Prompto giddy. At this rate he was gonna end up wading in up to his calves without even noticing. "Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. Not about kids, exactly." (Liar.) "But the crown – Prom, I haven’t made any official moves yet, but dad and I are starting to discuss what it might be like to transition Lucis from a kingdom into something else."

"Really? Wow, that’s – that’s big, Noct." It really was big. As the prince, Noctis didn’t have an official role in government aside from being on the king’s advisory panel, but he had taken on some pet projects on his own – transit being one example – and was starting to work alongside his dad to set things up for him when he did come into power. Ceding power altogether wasn’t only novel, it was unheard of.

"Yeah, I know. We’ve only met a few times, so no details yet, but we’re looking at neighboring nations for models. Nobody is living in a monarchy anymore. I mean some countries have royal families, but none that actually hold power. It’s antiquated. It robs the people of Lucis of any say in how their lives are run." Noctis paused. "Sorry, I ah, got a little carried away with that. I’m just really – it’s a really exciting idea, huh?"

It was breathtaking to listen to Noctis talk about the things that really mattered to him. There were years where Ignis and Gladio were afraid that he wasn’t ever going to be interested in ruling, that he wasn’t up to the responsibility of holding a kingdom together. Something changed, though, in his senior year of high school, and Noctis wasn’t only engaged in the intricacies of ruling a kingdom, he was taking on an active, public leadership role.

Prompto didn’t know watching someone find their calling could be so sexy. It was pretty distracting, to be honest. But Noctis was looking at him, expectant, so he said the only truth he knew. "If anybody could do it, it’d be you, buddy," he declared.

This elicited a laugh from Noctis. "Buddy, huh? Come over here, buddy." He set his notes down on the table to make room for Prompto on his lap.

Prompto was there in a second, pulling Nocts’ arms around his waist as fast as he could. Noctis’ chin came down to rest on his shoulder. He leaned back and nipped the side of Noctis’ ear, tugged on it with his teeth. "Want me to show you what buddies do together?" he asked, dipping his voice down low for effect.

Noctis tipped his head to the side, putting his neck on display. This allowed Prompto access to all the right spots. He bit Noct just behind the ear and got a shiver in response. It turned into a soft moan when he followed it up with tongue. It didn’t go any farther than that, though, because apparently Noctis wanted to continue the kids talk.

Shit, they were having the kids talk.

"So you might want kids," Noct said, twisting sideways to look at him. 

Prompto let out a frustrated noise and tried to steer the ship back to the kissing part, but Noctis evaded skillfully, prying Prompto out of his lap and positioning both of them so they were facing each other. Prompto bemoaned the lack of contact, but there wasn’t anything to be done about it. They were having the kids talk, and he wasn’t getting out of it.

The downside to dating the prince is that he always got what he wanted.

"What I told you. Never really thought about it. Maybe if my partner did…" Prompto looked up from where he was picking at a bit of loose fuzz stuck to the couch cushion. He felt suddenly shy, and he was sure a blush was spreading upwards from under his shirt collar. "Do you want kids?"

"It might be fun to have a few little ones in tow," Noctis said carefully. He was giving Prompto a look that was equal parts uncertainty and reassurance, like they had both just jumped into a particularly murky puddle and realized too late that it was actually a lake. Which was kind of what the entire relationship felt like, if Prompto was looking at it honestly. 

"A few? How many is a few? Like, two? Five?"

Noct gave a half-shrug. "I don’t know, just a few." 

"You wouldn’t settle for a nice, solid number like three? A few means three, right?"

"I mean, generally, yeah."

"So three kids, then." Prompto’s shyness met his mouth where it wove its way into a smile. His eyes, in turn, met Nocts’. They were smiling right back at him.

"Really?" Noct asked. "Because I would, I mean. Have kids with you." He breathed out a long, anxious-sounding breath, didn’t break eye contact. "If you wanted." 

It was a nice idea. But still - "That’s sweet, Noct, but it doesn’t change the fact that I can’t." The idea upset him more than it should. Here was Noctis, the only person Prompto had even imagined being able to spend the rest of his life with, and they couldn’t have a family. And that wouldn’t matter, but Noctis wanted a family, and if things were going to go that way, Prompto wouldn’t mind having one either.

Noctis could read him like a book. He gathered Prompto up in his arms, just lifted him up on top of his legs so the back of Prompto’s thighs were resting on his. Lips brushed the tip of his nose, and then those eyes were meeting his again, crinkled at the corner, gentle and kind. "Adoption is a thing, Prom. Surrogacy too, if we wanna go that route." The words were teasing, but hands and face and tone was anything but.

Prompto felt his heart melt. He leaned forward and let Noctis support his weight. He forced himself to relax, let his body say the words he wasn’t able to. 

Thank you.

"Three kids, then."

"Three kids."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come visit me on Tumblr.](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/itsalwaysbloodmagic)


	10. Epilogue - Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap it’s finished!
> 
> Thank you all for coming along for the ride. When I started this weird little story I thought nobody would read it, and now quite a few of you are actually following along and leaving kudos and commenting, and I am just so flattered. 
> 
> This chapter is long. I read through it several times, but as always, it’s possible that I missed something.
> 
> Oh, and I wrote smut. I thought long and hard (ha) about including it in this chapter, because it really actually goes here story wise, but I didn’t want to raise the rating just for the very last chapter, and I’m also not looking to spring that on anybody who didn’t come looking for NSFW material. So it’s linked to the series as Part 3. You know what to do. There’s probably a weird gap in content where it goes so you should skip on over there when you see the C===3 symbol (because I am super mature). Also, it’s pretty hot.
> 
> Enjoy and thanks for reading!
> 
> [come visit me on Tumblr](https://itsalwaysbloodmagic.tumblr.com/)

Sure, Noctis was romantic. Sure, he basically proposed the week he and Prompto started dating. That didn’t mean he was good at the whole official proposal thing, though.

They were celebrating their three-year anniversary when it finally happened. Prompto knew it was coming. Noctis was meticulous about their agreed-upon relationship timeline. Things had been going well; better than well, really. Excellent. Amazing. Spectacular.

So he was kind of waiting for the ring to come out.

Prompto started to get worried when their anniversary dinner crept along, no ring in sight. He got even more worried when there were no romantic overtures beyond what was expected on an anniversary. Then Noctis handed him a gift without even looking nervous, and Prompto unwrapped it to find – really? A watch? Noct's cocky smile at Prompto's clear disappointment should have given something away - Noctis could be a jerk when he wanted to, but not that kind of jerk. But Prompto had always been clueless, especially when it came to Noct, so he didn’t think twice about it. It wasn’t until they were home, cuddling against each other on the couch and watching a romantic comedy that Prompto had picked out (minimum drama, maximum fluff), that it happened. And then, well, Noctis just kind of – slipped the ring onto Prompto's finger without saying anything.

He looked down at the ring, then up at Noct, disbelief on his face. He tried to answer. He couldn’t. Like straight up couldn’t make a noise. He tried again. His vocal chords constricted stubbornly. One more attempt – just a strangled kind of half-choke. Nope, no words coming out anytime soon. 

Noctis coughed, started to look nervous. Shit. Prompto needed to say something. He cleared his throat and tried for the fourth time. Failed.

Finally… "Aren’t you gonna ask me?" It came out a whisper. 

Noctis paused, then said "oh yeah," like it hadn’t occurred to him to do things properly until right then in that moment. "You wanna get married?"

Prompto cuddled in closer. "Yeah, sure," he said casually, like his heart wasn’t beating out of his chest.

He wasn’t kidding anybody. 

A breath, held for too long, was released. "Cool, we’ll have a July wedding." 

And they went back to the movie, sitting there on the couch with big, stupidly shy grins on their faces, like they were on their first date and someone had gotten up the nerve to go in for a kiss.

A week later Prompto surprised Noct with a real proposal. They were on a hike, in front of a famous waterfall, surrounded by tourists. He got down on one knee and used his own ring for the affair, and Noctis said yes with laughter in his voice. They kissed in front of everybody and got a round of applause, which, predictably, made Prompto blush. The red sat on his face for hours afterwards and when it finally faded Noctis employed all the means at his disposal to bring it right back.

_____

The wedding was modest, held in a park that Noctis and Ignis used to sneak out of the Citadel to go to when they were children. Noct didn’t want a big public wedding. He wanted the royal family to fade from the spotlight before the transition to a parliamentary system happened, and he insisted that holding an official royal wedding with all the pomp and ceremony that entailed would undermine the process. His father wasn’t happy (Regis was a sucker for ceremony), but he was on board with the political goal so he let it go. "As long as I get to walk my son down the aisle," he said when Noctis sat down to tell him.

A small wedding was ideal, as far as Prompto was concerned. He only wanted his friends there anyway. Well, and his parents. They really hadn’t been around much after Prompto graduated high school. He figured he never really made an effort to include them in his life, though, so evensies stevensies. They did offer to help him bring his stuff over to Noctis’ place when he finally decided he was ready to live together, but they were a no-show on moving day, which Prompto decidedly did not have Feelings about. They were invited to dinner exactly once after that. It was nice to see them, but they left early, citing some early morning activity they had to get to the next day.

And then they came to the wedding. It was stilted and awkward and they didn’t even pretend to care about his friends. They greeted Noct the same way they greeted Prompto, cold and indifferent, made the expected overtures of congratulations and pride in their son and new son-in-law. In that way, Prompto supposed, they were telling the Caelums that they were as much family as Prompto was.

In contrast, Regis cried all the way through the whole thing, starting with Noctis on his arm and the wedding music playing, and ending only after Prompto shoved cake in Noct’s face – well, at least at that point the tears became happy tears. So maybe he never stopped crying. Nobody else was any better. Gladio stood up and gave the sweetest, most sincere toast in the history of wedding toasts, his eyes suspiciously wet through the whole thing. Ignis couldn’t even get through his speech. He choked up halfway through. A valiant attempt was made to recover the situation but in the end he settled for a simple "oh dear, there I go making a fool of myself" before sitting down and clutching Noct’s hand under the table. Prompto moved around Noctis to wrap Ignis in a giant hug, sobbing enough for the two of them. The poor man was so out of sorts he didn’t even notice the snot smears across the front of his shirt, just wore it that way for the rest of the night.

The rest of the event went about as one would expect it to go. Ignis had to stop Prompto from photographing his own wedding. He hired a friend instead, knowing Prompto wouldn’t want the expense of a professional photographer. When Prompto wasn’t dancing with Noct or letting Gladio feed him shots or trying to get Ignis to loosen up ('geez, Igster, stop re-plating the canapes and get over here') he was talking shop with the photographer and snapping selfies with his friends. The DJ was pretty bad so Aranea kicked him out. She took over for a while and then led the whole party in a round of bawdy drinking songs. Iris played along on the ukulele.

At the end of the night Noctis and Prompto retreated to the suite reserved for them at a bed and breakfast just inside the walls of Insomnia. They took off their shoes and sprawled on the floor. They were still a little bit drunk and exhausted to the point of being delirious, plus Ignis had them under strict orders to make a list of gifts now so they could remember which gift was matched to which guest for the thank-you notes they would write later - well, that Ignis would write later, really. Prompto tried to start a list but didn’t get very far before he got distracted admiring the gifts themselves, and Noctis pretty much passed out right away, so about twenty minutes into the attempt he woke Noct up instead and dragged him to the bed. There were some sleepy half-kisses and promises of sex in the morning before they were both passed out. Prompto woke once to find their faces squished together. They were drooling in each other's hair just like they had done so many times in high school, back when Prompto was still burying his feelings and Noctis was just clueless about love in general. Prompto didn’t even have enough wherewithal to remedy the situation – he just added an elbow to the equation before falling back asleep.

In the morning they drank orange juice, ate French toast in bed, and talked about their plans for the future, so giddy on life and each other that they forgot about sex altogether.

_____

They’d been together for five years, married for two, and Prompto was finally starting to get used to the idea that Noctis would be in his life, as his husband, forever. It was a funny feeling. Prompto had never really shaken the idea that he didn’t deserve Noct, that he would wake up and it would all have been a dream. He was overwhelmed with a sense of awe and bliss and disbelief literally every time he did wake up to Noct asleep next to him or squnting and grumbling about the sun being up. It was common for him to cry in those moments, to clutch Noctis and whisper that he was just so lucky to have this, like, all of this, that he was the luckiest man in the world.

At twenty-four years young they were settled in a big farmhouse within driving distance of Wiz’s Chocobo Post. The post had moved, and the new location was about twenty minutes from Insomnia. This meant that their property was close enough for an easy commute. When politics got too busy or Noctis was working against a deadline he would stay at the apartment Ignis still kept in the city. Ignis technically lived there, but he spent just as much time occupying a small cottage on the farm. 

Ignis was a co-owner of the property, as were Gladio, Aranea, and her girlfriends Rachel, Leigh, and Maddy - and Prompto and Noctis, of course. They all had their roles. Aranea maintained a hand-built rainwater catchment and irrigation system while Rachel wildcrafted plants and kept a pottery studio. Leigh and Maddy had a sizeable vegetable garden. Gladio developed a fondness for ranching, which meant they had home-butchered garula steaks and fresh eggs as often as they wanted. Ignis, of course, ran the kitchen, which was a detatched building of his own design. It included not only a cookspace but a dining area large enough to seat up to twenty and a cozy living room with couches and chairs pulled up close to a fireplace. They spent most evenings there, chatting and reminiscing and occasionally intervening in a toy-centered brawl.

Oh – and Prompto ran a wild chocobo breeding program, which had slowly morphed into an actual full-blown animal sanctuary. They were currently housing three raptors, a turtle, a handful of bunnies, a porcupine, and, for some reason, butterflies.

____

"Alexa, slow down before you trip!"

The chubby three-year-old continued their trajectory, careening down a softly sloping hillside by momentum borne simply of being a top-heavy toddler travelling at full speed. They were about to do a forward summersault, or a faceplant, or something; Prompto was sure of it.

"I wanna see Daddy's chickens!" Alexa cried. They tripped over their own feet, one landing clumsily in front of the other at a right angle. Prompto swooped in for the catch.

He scooped them up and held them upside down before the kid had a chance to catch up to what was happening. This led to a contagious fit of giggles that had Prompto and Alexa rolling around on the ground together, clutching their stomachs. Prompto had tears running down his cheeks. 

"Okay, we can go visit the chickens before we check on the chocobos," Prompto said, wiping the tears away and trying to get his wheezing under control. He could basically never say no to the kid; they were just too cute for words, and somehow at three years old they understood this, using the knowledge to weasel whatever they wanted out of their papa.

They took after their dad, really. 

Prompto stood and took Alexa by both hands, standing them in front of him and lifting them every few feet so they could feel like they were flying down the hill. He could see Gladio in the chicken coop, crouching low and talking softly to one of his favorite hens. He called her Dumbledore because she was an expert at escaping the coop. She would disappear right in front of your eyes, and you would look over and see her nonchalantly pecking at some grass on the other side of the chicken wire, like she had been there the whole time. 

"Daddy!" Alexa called when they got to the bottom. Gladio stood and walked over to the fence, shooing the chickens out of the way so he could open the gate and let Alexa slip through.

"What’s up, little one?" he asked. "You coming to say hi to Dumbledore? Damnit – I mean, gosh darn, look at that. Alexa, I think we're gonna need your expertise on this one."

Dumbledore was squarely outside the coop again, nowhere near the gate.

Prompto approached, laughing. "Hey there, gladdy daddy, we’re going over to the stables, wanna come?" 

"Yeah, sure," Gladio said, looking back at the coop. "Heck, it's not looking like I’m gonna get Dumbledore back in there anytime soon. She’ll end up in the henhouse come sundown without my help anyway. C’mon kid, let's go. Trystan is out with the birds. I bet he has some greens you can feed them."

Alexa reached up and took Gladio’s hand. 

_____

Trystan was Gladio's new girlfriend's son. He had only been there for a few months, having moved in with his mom, and so far it was going well. Besides Alexa and Trystan there was Turner, who spent weekends with Gladio and weekdays with his mom as part of an informal custody agreement, and Noctis and Prompto’s oldest, Cooper, who was seven. They had one more on the way, curtesy of a friend of a friend of Aranea’s, a turkey baster, and a plain, old, everyday freezer. It was the first time they had tried the surrogacy thing – Alexa was a refugee from Niflheim like Aranea and Cooper was a ward of the state before they brought her in as a foster kid. They ended up adopting her officially after six months and she was settling in pretty well, considering her background. Noctis just chalked the ease of the adoption process up to the wholesomeness of his family and his obviously perfect parenting skills. It was a sticking point for him and Prompto, because had it been anybody else, the state would have serious qualms about adopting a child into a very obviously co-parenting oriented arrangement between a bunch of queer weirdos who essentially lived on a compound together. They were receiving special treatment because of who Noct was. At first Prompto tried to explain this to Noctis, but Noct straight up didn’t get it and it became an easy topic to pick at when one of them was looking for an argument. So he stopped, and they bitterly agreed to disagree.

Aranea and her quad had recently taken in two homeless queer youth through a nonprofit organization. They were older, Lin at seventeen and Devon at twenty, and more or less functioned as adults. It was a temporary thing – their social workers were working hard on finding them permanent housing – but it was nice. Prompto felt like he was nurturing something, giving kids that didn’t have role models a sense of what their life could be like, and that meant something to him. Plus, he thought, it was perfect for Aranea. She had taken Prompto under her wing, after all. His life would have gone a lot differently without Aranea there to help him sort through his baggage; not only in terms of figuring out his queerness, but being okay with being an immigrant, and a poor kid, and getting over his shyness in middle school.

They had a sweet thing going – the kids were really everybody’s, with Nea’s partners as Mom and Mama and Mimi, and Gladio as Gladdy, or Daddy, or just plain Dad depending on which kid was addressing him. Everybody called Aranea Sis, but they all knew she was the mean one, and when she put her foot down nobody argued. Prompto was Papa and Noctis was Dad. Ignis had tried to get all the children to call him Uncle Ignis, but Noctis had insisted on Pops, and much to Iggy’s chagrin, it stuck.

Regis (Gramps) came around every weekend without fail and Clarus (Poopah, for some reason) usually came with him. Iris tagged along sometimes too. She would bring her guitar and sang wartime ballads and love songs, sometimes slipping in a children’s song that had Alexa clapping their hands and asking for more.

It was different, but it worked, and between his husband and his best friends and the kids and the chocobos, it was one big, beautiful queer family.

_____

Luna was coming to visit and the farm was in a flurry.

It was fall, so they were already busy. Wood needed chopping and hauling, the chicken coop was only half-winterized, and the cabin Aranea was building was supposed to be finished before first frost. In addition to this, the usual tasks like harvest and medicine making and keeping everybody fed had to be attended to. It wasn’t very cold yet, so they had set the kids to sweeping out a treehouse for Luna and Libs to sleep in and decorating it with whimsical touches of their choosing.

Prompto surveyed the scene, then turned to Ignis, who had joined him in the doorway. "Do you think it’s a fire hazard?" He was generally impressed with the transformation the treehouse was undergoing. Under Cooper’s watchful eye it was swiftly becoming a palace of gold crepe and gaudy sateen, twinkle lights of various colors, and way too many paper lanterns.

"Certainly," Ignis replied, a little too dryly to be believed. His lips turned up at the corners.

"Iggy, don’t mess with me, you know how gullible I am." 

"Okay, fine, I was lying," Ignis said, letting out just a hint of a chuckle. "The treehouse is not in danger of burning down anytime soon - as long as the fabric is kept from the lanterns, that is."

"Cooper, you hear that? Pops says be careful of the fabric."

Cooper paused from where she was standing atop a low ladder. "Hmm, I suppose Uncle Ignis is right," she said, turning a critical eye to the room. She took after Iggy, and it showed. Her voice betrayed an uncanny level maturity and intelligence for the seven-year-old that she was.

Ignis cleared his throat. "Yes, well, it looks like our interior designer has got the impromptu bedroom under control. I need to check on the casserole. Shall we?" He held out an elbow for Prompto, and Prompto took it.

"Sure man, I gotta check on the chocobo eggs anyway. The black one should be hatching any day now!"

"Fabulous," said Ignis. "I was worried we were running low on wards." There was sarcasm there, but also fondness. Ignis would never admit it, but he loved the chocobos – all of the animals, really. He was fond of taking his favorite chocobo, a green one named Charlie, out on long rides across the countryside, often with Noctis or a stray child trailing along behind him. When he returned to the stables he always gave Charlie a good grooming, murmuring to him in a hushed voice, telling him how good he did and what a delicious dinner he was getting and that they would meet again soon. It was all very cute, and Prompto liked to tease him about it.

Farm life suited Ignis better than he would ever admit to. Noctis and Regis would often conspire to keep him on the farm for days on end. It wasn’t easy. One time, for example, Noctis had to declare a week-long national holiday. It was worth it to see him relax into long days and leisurely nights, though. He’d taken an active role in raising the kids and was able to drop the diplomatic act for extended periods of time, which, according to Noctis, had the added bonus of making Workplace Iggy much easier to be around. Prompto was just glad to get more time with him, and took advantage when he could, enlisting Ignis to help with the sanctuary. It was a good arrangement, and both Noctis and Prompto hoped that Ignis would step back even more from his duties at the Citadel when the new government was fully established. 

_____

Luna pulled up to the old barn, the sound of the engine announcing her arrival. All of a sudden the whole family was there, crowding her car while she tried, without much luck, to get the door open. Turner finally grabbed the door handle and jerked it open for her, causing her to almost fall out. She stood up with a huge grin on her face. 

"Whoah there, guys, slow down," she begged. A loud, hearty laugh, and she was enveloped in a hug that involved a total of no less than eleven people.

The dogs barked and scrabbled at back windows until finally Umbra jumped up into the front, darting around Luna and into Turner’s waiting arms, pinning the five-year-old to the ground and licking his face with abandon. Turner giggled and kicked in delight, pushing Umbra back far enough to get his little hands in the fur behind his ears and grip, somehow scratching and petting at the same time. Pryna sat obediently in the back seat, waiting to be given permission to exit. Libertus climbed out of the passenger seat and whistled. There was a flash of white fur and Pryna was standing at his side, a shadow of a shadow.

Noctis sidled up alongside Libertus and greeted him shyly. The two were close, enjoyed each other’s company, but there was still a residual uncertainty from years ago when Libs had just started dating Luna and Noctis had feelings about it. They’d formed a kind of brotherly bond – Libertus had taken on an informal planning role at the wedding, and fit himself snugly into their lives after that. He’d managed to find Galahadian caterers and helped Prompto choose flowers and centerpieces. And when Luna had stood by Noct’s side as his best man – well, lady really – he’d sat in the second row from the front looking wistful.

Noctis and Prompto kept waiting for their wedding announcement, but so far there was nothing.

The couple was ushered into the kitchen where Ignis was waiting with wine and a small spread of snacks. His greeting was warm, two hands clasped around one for Libertus, who promptly pulled the man into a bear hug, followed by a second hug for Luna and a murmured "darling Luna" into her hair. The dogs trailed behind her into the kitchen. He squatted down in front of them.

"Well hello there, young pup," Ignis greeted Pryna. In response, Pryna lifted one paw. Ignis took it with a flourish and a bow, then ruffled the dog’s fur. Meanwhile, Umbra nuzzled at the nape of Ignis’ neck. He let him do it, only reaching back to encourage the beast.

Trystan joined Ignis, sitting on the floor and stretching his legs out in front of him. "Hey Pops, what’s for dinner?" he asked. At eleven he was pretty food-focused, prone to asking about the next meal within twenty minutes of finishing his last.

"Do stand up, the floor is filthy," was Ignis’ reply, before he rose from his own squatting position. A moment later and a tad conciliatory, he added, "chicken and wild rice casserole."

"Hot dish! Cool!" Trystan was needling Ignis. 

"If you wish to call it that, although the term is a tad… literal."

"Specs, the glassware is a casserole. The food you cook in it is a hot dish," Noct supplied from the sidelines.

He earned a glare for his troubles. 

The interaction was familiar, scripted almost. Trystan would needle Ignis and Ignis would feign offense. In a way, it was reminiscent of a younger Noct and his advisor. How Trystan was so good at it at eleven was beyond Prompto. The kid had an above average emotional intelligence and was well known for using it to his advantage.

The chaos dissipated as people began to settle in. Pretty soon the living area was crammed so full that people were sitting on the floor, leaning up against legs, or purchasing on arm rests and laps. Pryna joined them, but Umbra was nowhere to be found. That was nothing new – Prompto knew that the dog was prone to disappearing for days. Probably off hunting, according to Luna and Libs. Prompto liked to imagine she was delivering messages to people around the world, maybe even traveling back and forth in time on occasion. She was just magical enough for it to be believable. He may have even woven the idea into a bedtime story or two for Alexa. 

Ignis had finally come to terms with the reality of cooking for a crowd, which meant he was happy to leave the hot dish in the oven, serve up some pre-purchased snacks, and invite people to help themselves to drinks before settling into his own spot.

_____

A lesser man would have gotten a little too drunk and burned the hot dish. Not Ignis Scientia.

The dish came out of the oven at exactly 6:36pm. People were invited to move to the table, and they damn well did so. Immediately, and without hesitation.

Supper was served.

_____

Turner wrinkled his nose. "Eew, peas."

"That’s my boy," Noctis said with a chuckle. The peas ended up on his plate for a brief moment before they were quietly transferred over to Luna’s. She pretended not to notice, just speared them onto her fork, four little peas stuck to four little tongs, all lined up in a row, one forkful after another travelling from plate to fork to mouth.

_____

Prompto blinked. "Babe, you’ve got –" he gestured to the front of Noct’s shirt.

Noctis looked and looked, craned his neck down, totally missing the spot. He shrugged before going back to maneuvering around Turner to eat. At five the kid should be too old for sitting on Dad’s lap and eating from his plate, but Noctis spoiled him. Neither Prompto nor Gladio stopped it from happening though, because Noct looked so darn cute with a kid slung over one hip or on his lap or seated on his shoulder blades. Basically kids looked cute on Noct. Like a fashion accessory.

Turner picked up another handful of hot dish and deposited about half of it in his mouth. The rest ended up on Noctis’ shirt. The kid was really way too old for this, and definitely doing it on purpose. Prompto thought it must be a comfort thing, and made a mental note to talk to Gladio about it later.

For now he walked to their end of the table, lifted Turner up from Noct’s lap, and deposited him in his own chair. Then he went back to Noct and did his best to clean up the little bits of rice and chicken stuck to his shirt.

Noctis waved his hand dismissively. "Ah, don’t worry about it. There’ll be more by the end of the night."

_____

"Hey Pops, this is pretty good."

Ignis smiled. "Come now, it’s nothing special."

_____

There was a natural lull in conversation. The only sound was that of forks scraping against plates, punctuated by the occasional satisfied grunt, mostly from Gladio.

"Oh, I almost forgot, my brother says hi. He said to tell you all he’s sorry he couldn’t make it," Luna said.

Gladio snorted. "Yeah, right."

"Hey, that’s not fair. He tries, you know. He just doesn’t know how to make up for being such a dick."

"You mean he doesn’t know how to not be a dick," Aranea corrected.

Ignis paused in the middle of dishing out seconds to various children. "He never liked me much, did he?"

Noct wrinkled his nose. "Pretty sure it was me he didn’t like."

"Nah, he was just protective," Luna said with a wave of her arm. "Besides, he warmed up to Ignis, didn’t he?"

"He called me asinine. On more than one occasion." 

Gladio wiped his mouth with his napkin before picking up his fork and pointing it in Ignis’ direction. "Iggy, he was into you."

An eyebrow went up. "Well, he has a funny way of showing it." Ignis pushed his glasses up his nose, ignoring Gladio’s pointed stare. "He’s hard to get one up on, you know. It makes for an entertaining challenge." He kept his eyes trained on his plate, as though the admission was meant exclusively for the wild rice.

Luna grinned, wide and teasing. "I know," she said, in a perfect imitation of Ignis at his most irritated. 

_____

"But I don’t wanna go to bed!"

"Kid, you’re lying on the floor. Strike that, you’re rolling on the floor."

"Am not!"

Aranea bent down, attempting to scoop Alexa up from where they had managed to wedge themself, which was half under Libertus’ chair. She wasn’t successful, mostly due to the fact that the child in question chose that moment to go deadweight. It was like trying to lift a particularly stubborn, floppy, human-shaped rag doll. 

Libertus looked down at the goings – on, seemingly unsure how to handle it. "Uh, should I move?"

"Nah, you’re fine." 

Prompto debated. He could solve the issue pretty easily; Alexa was more prone to listen to Papa, after all. On the other hand, watching Nea slowly lose her patience was always a good time. 

"But all the other kids are staying up!"

"Where are the other kids right now? No, seriously. Look around." Aranea’s voice was getting that edge to it.

Alexa looked. They sniffled and wiped their nose. "In their chairs," they said, to the floor. 

"And where are you?"

"Under Uncle Lib’s chair."

Aranea stood up. She looked down at the kid, crossing her arms over her chest and looking as imposing as possible, which was pretty scary, considering the fact that she was Aranea. "So what do you need to do if you want to stay up?"

Alexa stared stubbornly at the ground. She didn’t budge.

Prompto and Noct shared an amused look across the table. Neither one of them made any move to intervene.

_____

"Alright, who gave the dog an entire plate of peas?"

_____

Turner eventually joined Alexa under the table. Trystan got combative about dessert. Cooper stood to clear the table, only to be brushed to the side by Maddy. "I’m on dish duty tonight," she said.

"Whatever," Cooper muttered, rolling her eyes. 

It was time for the kids to go to bed. All of them.

_____

Gladio and Lin made to usher all children under fifteen out of the kitchen and across the way to the giant farmhouse, where they slept when it was too cold to occupy treehouses, or when they had guests.

Turner held out longer than the rest. "Why can’t we have a sleepover with Luna and Libs?" he asked, his voice full of hope.

Prompto looked at Luna. "Any interest?"

She smiled apologetically. "Sorry, Prom, that’s a little over the top for us."

Right. When it came down to it, Luna and Libertus were not kid people. "You heard the lady. Off to bed, champ. We’ll wake you for waffles."

"Uncle Ignis, can I help make waffles in the morning?" Cooper asked.

"Of course. Bright and early, though. Seven AM."

A hand came down on Ignis’ shoulder. "Come on Specs, nobody’s gonna want food before eleven. You can sleep in sometimes."

"And what of the early risers, Noct? Are they to fend for themselves?"

"Yep," Devon said, and that was the final word on the matter.

"Nine-thirty, then. See you in the morning, Cooper."

"See you in the morning, Pops."

_____

After the children were deposited elsewhere and the adults had returned, looking slightly worse for wear from the effort of convincing them it was a good idea to sleep, the party moved back into the living area. Drinks were passed around, even to Lin and Devon, both of whom were still technically underage.

"Aranea," Gladio growled in warning, when she handed Lin a beer.

"What? You gonna tell me you never had a beer before the age of twenty-one? We grew up together, remember?"

"Yeah, but my parents never personally served me one. "

"I’ve done worse," Lin interjected. 

"We know, don’t we Gladio?" Aranea said with emphasis. Lin had a rough past. When she was kicked out of her parent’s house at fifteen, she moved in with her boyfriend, who, turned out, was an addict. She got pulled into it for a while, but was clean now, and trying to get a handle on being an adult. Prompto was with Aranea – the kid had more life experience than any of them at that age and could certainly have a beer if she chose to.

Gladio glared. "Whatever, it’ll be your mistake when it backfires."

Lin and Aranea both rolled their eyes. Prompto heard Gladio mutter something about "two teenagers" under his breath.

Libertus cleared his throat. "So, uh, that go with the parenting territory?"

"Yep," Gladio said. He was clearly still on edge, anger slipping out around his consonants. "Not really showing you a good time, though, are we? Tell me – what have you two been up to?"

Luna’s hand drifted down to rest on Pryna’s head. "I finally got Pryna certified as a service dog," she said. "Training and everything."

Pryna sat and preened, as though she knew she was being talked about, while Luna stroked her head. Luna’s hand stilled for a moment and a furry snout tilted up, nudging at it for more pets.

"Oh cool," Prompto said. "So she, like, senses when you’re gonna have a seizure?"

Luna had epilepsy. Shed had seizures once or twice when she was visiting, the kind where the person kind of just blanks out for a while. She’d told them that they weren’t a big deal for her, it was more of an issue when people didn’t know how to respond. Like, sometimes she got confused afterwards and had to be reminded where she was and who the people around her were. And in public people might misinterpret what was happening and call emergency services, even though that just landed her with a big bill and too many hours in the hospital. The benefit of training Pryna was that she could tell Luna when she was going to have a seizure before she herself recognized the symptoms, and she could stay with her while it was happening. Pryna could even protect Luna if necessary.

"Well, we had to train her with positive reinforcement, treats and all that." Another nudge of snout to hand, more petting. "She caught on quickly, though. Some dogs are just more intuitive than others, you know?" 

"Yeah, well, Pryna’s pretty psychic. Arent you, beautiful?" Prompto leaned forward and held up his hands for Pryna to come over. She looked at Luna for permission before trotting across to Prompto’s chair.

Luna grinned. "She sure is. Oh – and Libs got his refugee program off the ground and running."

Libertus took a swig of beer. "Yep. As a matter of fact, I’m working with some folks in Insomnia to start a chapter. They’ll be lobbying His Majesty to provide more avenues to citizenship."

Noct rolled his eyes. "No titles in my house, Libs. You know that."

"Hey, it’s relevant."

"I know. But he’s Regis to you, okay? He’d have strong words for you himself if he was here."

"Yeah, yeah. But seriously, right now the quickest way to become a citizen is to join the army. I don’t know if it’s on purpose, Noct, but it doesn’t come across as particularly inviting in the refugee community. They won’t tell you as much, but a lotta folks don’t come back, or they come back damaged, and from their point of view it’s on purpose. Reduce the refugee population and you’ve got fewer mouths to feed. That kinda talk."

Gladio rubbed his face and frowned. "Kinda heavy for catching up over beers, Libs."

"Kinda hard to ignore when you’ve lived it," Libertus snapped back.

"It’s true, Gladio," Aranea offered. "Some of us don’t have the privilege of ignoring what’s going on. Ask me to tell you about healthcare for vets sometime. It’s shit."

Gladio looked like he wanted to say more, but he kept his mouth shut. The conversation continued. Ignis eventually located a notepad and pen so he could take notes to bring back to the Council, and all of a sudden they were having a working meeting in the kitchen over beers. Politics never really left Prompto’s life – it was a side effect of marrying the Crown Prince, he supposed.

_____

"Where’s the royal bastard tonight, guys?" Aranea asked. She had moved onto the floor at some point and was leaning against Rachel’s legs. Pryna kept trying to nudge her for attention, but Aranea adamantly did not like dogs. She was blatantly ignoring Pryna, who had resorted to forcing her way under Aranea’s arm and onto her lap.

Noct’s look was sharp. "The royal bastard is currently attached to the uterine lining of a friend of yours, and Kira isn’t here." 

"Not helping, babe," Rachel said, squeezing Aranea’s shoulder.

"She was invited, right?"

Prompto played with his sleeves. "She was invited," he said, "said she was coming, too."

"Yeah, she’s not coming," Noct said, not looking up. Pryna gave up on Aranea and pushed her way into the space between Noctis’ legs, leaning back on him to be hugged. Noctis complied, and Prompto could see some of the tension leave his shoulders.

It was a sensitive topic – they had been very careful to select a surrogate that could be vouched for, but that they didn’t know directly, so clear boundaries could be put in place. Ignis had helped them navigate the legal paperwork, and Kira had signed full custody over to them. They had left the question of how much contact she would have open to discussion and had eventually settled on not much – neither Noctis nor Prompto wanted another co-parent in their lives, and they definitely didn’t want someone they didn’t know well. Prompto felt guilty about it, and he would have been fine with Kira taking a role similar to an aunt, but Kira insisted she didn’t want that. Prompto was afraid she had feelings about it that she wasn’t telling them. She had an open invitation to the farm and they invited her to join them for dinner on a somewhat regular basis. She took them up on it at first, and she was fun to hang out with, but as the pregnancy progressed she was showing up less and less. They weren’t afraid that she was backing out or anything - it was too late for that anyway, or at least it would be a big legal mess to untangle, which Prompto also had some guilt about - but it didn’t feel good. Usually the subject was avoided altogether, but, well, Aranea never had a lot of tact.

They probably wouldn’t do the surrogacy thing again.

Luna displayed her tact, though, managing to move the conversation along by asking if they were excited about a new baby, and how far along Kira was, and whether they had started decorating a room. The new arrival would be sharing Prompto and Noct’s room at first, they explained, and they’d purchased a co-sleeping crib so that they could all be in the same bed without Prompto worrying about rolling over onto the infant in the night, or about having too many pillows and blankets in the bed – Prompto was sure they were hazardous.

Noctis laughed at that and told him he was being silly, and Aranea interrupted to say that SIDS was real and that they were making the right decision. The topic was changed again, this time by Prompto, who had heard enough lectures about evidence-based child rearing from Aranea to last a lifetime. He pulled out his phone and flipped to the photo album of the kids, moving to sit by Luna so he could crowd her and narrate each picture. Luna feigned interest for a whole fifteen minutes before she drifted into a side conversation with Devon about community colleges. Prompto wandered back over to Noct and found himself pulled into a lap. He was sleepy and a little bit drunk and generally content. He snuggled into Noct’s sweater and wrapped his arms around him. The room filled with the sound of quiet chatter and he felt himself drifting. 

_____

"…wedding anytime soon?"

"Nah, not our scene."

Prompto lifted his head and squinted around. He must have actually fallen asleep, because he wasn’t following the conversation. Noct kissed him absentmindedly on the top of the head and then helped him scoot over onto the adjoining chair. He kept his feet in Noct’s lap, wiggling his toes in the universal symbol for foot rub, please. The message was received, and pretty soon his feet were warm under Noctis’ touch.

"No kids, no weddings," Luna said. 

Prompto grinned sleepily. "Aww, you guys are no fun."

"Back to the land of the living, then, Prom?" Libertus asked. He winked at Prompto.

Prompto blushed and scooted down into his chair. He got a wide-open smile for it.

Luna and Libs shared a look, and then Luna said slowly, "you know, we opened up our relationship."

Gladio leaned forward. "No way. You guys? That’s new. Tell us everything, all the details." The man was a sucker for gossip. He also wasn’t catching on to exactly why the conversation had taken this particular turn.

"Threesomes," Libertus said. He leaned back in his chair and looked way too proud of himself.

Prompto was awake now. "Really? Oh wow, that’s hot. Sorry. If that’s weird to say. Uh, how do you – I mean, what – how’s that work?" He blushed brighter, if that was even possible. He kind of wanted to die right there, but he also kind of – really - wanted to know.

A small but wicked grin crossed Luna’s face. "I mean, you could find out."

"What? Are – are you, oh, uh, Noct?" Oh gods, that sounded like he was asking for permission. He wasn’t, he just needed someone else to jump in here, because holy crap the whole idea was overwhelming and kinda hot and terrifying, if Prompto was being quite honest. Plus, there was Gladio, finally catching on, and smirking like he had just picked up the juiciest piece of gossip in the whole damn world, and right, they were in public, well, at least in front of other people, even if they were all family…

Noctis’ hand travelled up Prompto’s leg to just above his knee. He found Prompto’s eyes. "We can talk about it if you want," he said. Okay, that wasn’t helping.

He looked from Noct to Luna to Libertus. They just looked back at him, expectant. Prompto realized they were waiting for a response.

Then it dawned on him. "Wait… did you guys – Noct, did you already talk about this? Without me?"

Noct’s face turned from expectant to guilty, and a little like he thought he’d made a mistake. He squeezed Prompto’s knee. "Sorry, Prom, if it’s too much… you don’t have to feel pressured. Maybe this was the wrong way to bring it up."

"No, babe, I mean yeah, you kinda put me on the spot, but…" 

If Prompto was being honest, a part of him was interested. Another, equally large part, was totally freaked out. He and Noctis were monogamous, they’d talked about it early in their relationship. Aranea pushed hard for the conversation. She’d insisted that nobody should default to monogamy, that it was an okay choice to make, but not without really talking it through – just like any other arrangement, she’d said. So they talked, and realized pretty soon into the conversation that they were on the same page. Prompto still crushed hard on everybody but actually following through was another story. He really needed to trust someone to get physical with them, at least he thought so. It was kind of theoretical, since he’d only ever slept with Noct. There was just too much body stuff to navigate with a stranger or an acquaintance. And romantically he legitimately only had eyes for Noctis, always had. That worked for Noctis, because he got jealous pretty easily, and he had grown up just knowing that he would meet somebody and fall in love and get married and that was it. It went beyond the expectations of his station. It was just part of who he was. 

"…Are you really okay with this?"

"If I trusted anybody, it would be Luna and Libs."

"Wow, okay, I’m flattered. I mean, not okay yes, just okay, wow." Prompto stopped himself. He was rambling, and he needed a clear head for this conversation. Plus, Gladio. And Aranea and Rachel and Leigh and Maddy. And yep, there was the look Prompto was expecting from Nea. Like she was just so proud of him. "Stop it, Sis, I can feel you having opinions."

Lin finished her beer off and got up. "Well, I should get to bed. You too, Devon." 

Devon looked thoroughly embarrassed for all of them. He might as well say "eew, gross" like a twelve-year-old. Instead he let Lin take his hand and lead him out of the kitchen.

Ignis was the only one not reacting. Gods bless Ignis. At some point he had fetched his knitting, and he was currently working on the cuff of a child-size sweater. The yarn was thin and the needles were small. Prompto thought distantly about the time that he tried knitting. Ignis had given him needles that seemed giant at the time, and big, chunky yarn. Good to start with, he’d said. The skein somehow ended up in one big tangle and the project still sat half-forgotten somewhere in his bedroom. Every once in a while he would come across it and think about how he should probably try again.

Libertus cleared his throat. "Maybe give you some time to think?"

Oh, right. That conversation.

He looked at Noct. Panic must be creeping into his eyes, because Noctis was patting his lap. "C’mere," he said. 

"Nah, I’m fine, Noct. Really. And," he tried for a flirtatious smile and a wink in Lib’s direction, "I’ll definitely think about it. I meant it when I said it was hot." The wink must have been convincing, because Libs’ expression turned into something downright hungry and Noct’s touch changed tone dramatically. He let it happen, sinking down into the feeling of being wanted. 

_____

"Noctis proposed to me in Altissia, you know," Luna said a while later. They were all quite drunk by now.

"You what? Really, babe? Nobody ever told me that."

Noctis looked a little ashamed. "Iggy told me not to." 

"As I remember, Noct, I encouraged you to avoid doing so, on the basis that you would break poor  
Prompto’s heart."

"Iggy, you said that? You snitch!"

"Yeah, well, his royal dumbass didn’t exactly pick up on why your heart might be broken," Gladio interjected.

Luna’s eyes widened. "Wow, Noctis, that’s pretty dense, even for you."

"We were both pretty dense, weren’t we?" Prompto said, squeezing Noctis’ hand.

"I wasn’t dense! You just hid it well." 

Several "No he didn’ts" came at them like a chorus.

"I – hey!"

"It all worked out in the end, now, didn’t it?" Ignis asked. 

"…And I was taken so off-guard. I mean, yeah, we were good friends, but Noctis, I hadn’t seen you since elementary school."

"I thought I was making myself perfectly clear," Noct said, a little indignantly.

"And how, exactly, were you doing that?"

"…in our letters?"

Luna giggled. "Noctis, one time you sent me a letter and all it said was 'got it'."

Noctis glanced away, and suddenly he looked like he had at twenty, easily embarrassed and unsure of himself.

"That’s all it needed to say."

Luna laughed, and it sounded like music.

_____

Ten minutes later and Prompto was draped across Noct’s lap, blowing his nose in Noct’s shirt, and wiping tears from his eyes. "I just, I just love you all so much… and Noct, you’re the best husband ever, and I’m just so lucky." He hiccupped and more tears slipped out.

"And we’ve moved on to the crying stage," Ignis said over his knitting. He’d moved on to attaching a sleeve to the torso of the sweater.

Gladio snorted. "Yep, time to put the last kiddo to bed."

"Hey!" Prompto said between sniffles.

"I’m just playing with you, big guy," Gladio said gently. He stood and crossed the room, patting Prompto on the head before depositing his beer bottle in the recycling and wishing everybody a good night. "I’m out. See you all in the morning."

Prompto wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "He still calls me big guy, but that’s our name for him." That sent him over the edge into ugly crying. 

Noct was rubbing comforting circles into his shoulder blades. "I think Gladio’s right, babe. Let’s get you into bed." He felt himself being lifted gently and prodded into a standing position. Noctis stood up after him and took his hand. "Good night, all. See you in the morning for waffles and screaming children."

Everybody said their good nights, and then they were walking through the chilly night air. When they got to the farmhouse it was creaky and familiar. Their bed was warm, and Noct was there, and everything was perfect.

_____

C===3 C===3 C===3  
_____

Prompto was on cloud nine, sailing along on a I’ve-just-been-fucked-and-now-I’m-totally-blissed-out high. He was warm and kinda melty on the inside. Even meliter on the outside, he thought, specifically between his legs. It was delicious.

He was heading down the path that led from the farmhouse to the chocobo barns. It was still chilly out and the ground was dusted with a fine coating of frost. In Lucis they said that frost was Shiva’s kiss, which somehow blessed the world on a regular basis after the first time she and Ifrit made love. When he was a kid Prompto would listen to the Cosmogony myths with rapt attention, swept up in the fantasy. He’d always been drawn to the ones about Shiva and Ifrit because, well, they were in love, and Shiva was the most human of all the Astrals. As he grew older and started really paying attention, though, he’d developed a sneaking suspicion that the Astrals were actually kind of dicks, caught up in petty infighting and content to use puny humans as they saw fit. Plus, the love stories he adored so much as a child were meant to explain the seasons, and there was just something a little too hetero about the idea that all plant and animal life was a result of two straight gods getting it on. It made him feel like he, with his freakish body and inability to procreate, had no place in the world.

Still, he liked the stories. That’s probably why, he thought, he’d taken to telling them to Cooper and Alexa. He stuck to different ones, though. Took some poetic license. Leviathan was his favorite. He liked her because she was the least relatable, downright alien in her sea goddess skin. In his stories she was stuck in second wave feminism and spent a lot of time being irritated that men kept demanding her attention, as though she cared about their problems. They took up too much space, and one day she would snap and lay ruin to entire cities out of pure, old-fashioned feminist rage. Then, at least, she could have a little peace. There was a lot of cheering from the kids when he told Leviathan stories.

Titan was a funny guy and a bro who had your back, even if he was a little intimidating. Ramuh, well, Ramuh was like a kindly old grandfather, but he would fuck you up if the situation called for it.

He’d messed up and told Ramuh’s lightning stories to Turner at the tender age of two, which had resulted in months of terrified sobbing fits any time there was a storm.

Prompto rounded a corner, whistling. A very sleepy Luna sitting on the kitchen steps and clutching at a cup of coffee. "Morning," he said, with a stretch and a yawn. 

Luna kinda just flapped a hand in his direction before using it to brush her hair out of her face. 

"On my way to feed the chocobos, wanna come with? I can show you the eggs that are incubating." Prompto doubted he would have her company, given the pre-coffee state she was in, but it was only common courtesy to extend the invitation. Plus, he really wanted to show her the black chocobo egg. It was going to hatch any day now, and that was an event that shouldn’t be missed.

To his surprise, Luna agreed. "Yeah, actually, just give me a second." She grimaced and peered into her coffee cup like it held some unruly secret. "Maybe a few seconds… wanna grab a cup of coffee? Join me?"

"Sure thing." Prompto was usually a mid-day coffee person, but the early morning sunlight warming the stoop was calling his name. He half-skipped into the kitchen.

There was a French press three-quarters full of coffee and a carton of creamer set haphazardly on the counter, with little drabbles of cream and a ring of brown water adding some pizazz to the scene. Ignis was nowhere to be scene, thank the Gods. The sight would probably give him an aneurism. Apparently Libertus was the tidy one in the relationship? Or maybe they were both slobs. Prompto considered the question while he wiped up the mess with a wet rag and poured himself a mug. His train of thought took a predictable left-hand turn, and he found himself going over what had transpired in the past nine or so hours. Thinking about Luna and Libs caused a stir of interest coupled with anxiety in the bottom of his belly, which he frankly didn’t need right now – he would rather avoid awkward coffee time. He really should have taken that into consideration before letting his husband jerk him off to the fantasy of fucking them, though. So there was that. 

But there was mutual interest, a clear proposition, so he didn’t need to be too worried, right? A proposition, Prompto reminded himself firmly, he was not going to take them up on. Present Prompto wasn’t always good about making rational decisions, even ones thought out in advance. He had never grown out of being impulsive. At this point in his life he probably never would. He needed to remember to stick to his guns on this one, though. Ha, guns. Prompto flexed his, turning his head sideways to admire them and planting a kiss on one bicep. 

Welp, time to face the music. 

He let himself back out the screen door and plopped down next to Luna. The sun had risen far enough that the frost was starting to melt into dew, which made the scene around them pretty damn beautiful. The drops were catching the light, and each blade of grass was acting as its own ray of sunshine.

He pointed it out to Luna. She squinted and said "wow, you’re really a morning person, aren’t you?"

"Sure am!" he squeaked. "Oh, that was probably a little too cheerful, huh?" He lifted a hand up to the back of his head in an attempt to smooth down what he was sure was a close approximation of a bird’s nest. He hadn’t taken time this morning to fix his hair, and it took a lot of work to wrestle it into something presentable. It was a task he usually put off until after his chores were done. That way he could tackle the straw that inevitably found its way into the tangles. "Sorry about that. Ignis usually steers clear of me in the mornings. Says I’m 'a tad too chipper for him'." He flashed a big, warm smile at Luna. "The chocobos will wake you up, though. They’re so cute in the mornings, half of them are all sleepy, still curled up in a little ball with their heads tucked into the wings. But then the young ones can’t wait to get out into the pasture, and they head butt you with their beaks – well, I guess it’s a beak butt, really, and – "

"Prompto, Luna said, cutting him off. "Can we have, like, two minutes of silence while I wake up?"

He must have let a little of the dejection he felt at her words show on his face, because she looked followed it up with, "you’re delightful, I’m just not online all the way yet".

"Yeah, okay, I get it." Prompto watched the grass glint and sparkle and thought about how lucky he was to have all this. Which reminded him again of last night. Oh gods, he had cried over how perfect his life was, huh? He thought about apologizing for that too but bit his tongue. 'One: you are working on not apologizing for everything,' he told himself. 'Two: Luna literally just asked you to be quiet.' Prompto squinted up at the sun, realized that was probably a bad idea, and then remembered his coffee and took a sip.

Man, he wasn’t at his best this morning either. Probably a little hung over. Usually he had a kid or two to distract him in the mornings, but he hadn’t heard a peep from any of them yet. He supposed they were still all asleep. It had been a late night for everybody.

One of many nice things about co-parenting is that you could catch a break when you needed one. Gladio’s girlfriend had taken a shift last night, claiming she needed to go to sleep early anyhow. She was kind of shy in a crowd, which Prompto could understand, and she didn’t know Luna and Libertus that well to begin with. Prompto assumed she’d used the kids as an excuse to take a night to herself, which Prompto had done plenty in the past.

Apparently he’d gotten lost in his thoughts long enough to satisfy Luna, because she put her coffee down with a slightly alarming clattering noise and turned brightly to face Prompto. "Okay," she said. "Awake and ready for chatter."

"Just like that, huh?" he teased. "Well, then, you’re in for a morning of Prompto Argentum freaking out about chocobos. Which is every morning, by the way. Hashtag blessed!" He stood and offered his arm with a wink. She took it, openly delighted, and joined him to skip down the path toward the chocobo barn.

The walk was surprisingly not awkward, which was nice. They even talked about stuff. Like, that stuff.

"So, Prompto," Luna started, releasing his elbow and putting some space between them. "Libs and I really didn’t mean to put you on the spot last night. You can, uh, take all the time you need to think about… things."

Prompto realized Luna was actually nervous about this. Maybe even more than him. 

"Hey, no hard feelings here. About being put on the spot, I mean." He hoped he sounded reassuring. They had kinda dropped the idea on him out of nowhere, but he really didn’t mind once he’d calmed down about it. "There’s really no graceful way to bring something like that up, is there?" He paused and let out a nervous little laugh. "Besides, Noct and I, ah, talked about it this morning." 

Okay, so that was a liberal use of the word "talked". Prompto supposed it counted, if he was taking into consideration the fact that both their names had been mentioned, and that words had been said (albeit not always coherently), and that -- okay, best not to go there right now. Stick to your guns, Prom. 

"We decided - and this is not personal, there’s a part of me that really wants to take you up on the offer," he continued, "but we - I - decided it’s not a good idea. For us. Well, for me, more than us." 

Prompto felt guilty. He had just turned down a super flattering and enticing offer for sex – for a threesome, hot – with two people he trusted enough to maybe actually do it with. But when he thought about what it might actually be like, well, there were just too many unknowns. The idea was more anxiety inducing than it was exciting. That was enough information for him to know it wasn’t a good idea. He could only hope they wouldn’t feel too let down.

Luna just gave him a nod and a reassuring smile. "No biggie. Anyway, it’s not like we’re short on potential dates."

"None as charming as me, I bet." He cracked a grin and spun an imaginary gun around one index finger, blowing into the barrel and then tucking it into an imaginary holster. 

Luna’s laugh really did sound like music.

_____

Gladio had beaten them to the punch. "Hey," he greeted when he caught sight of them approaching the barn. He was standing in the center of one of the stalls, calf-deep in fresh hay. "Thought we wouldn’t see either of you till halfway through brunch."

"Morning person, remember?" Prompto stopped to greet Trystan and Turner, who were occupying the attention of a chocobo named Kitty (Alexa had picked out the name, back when they were calling everything Kitty, from cats to people to furniture), who was currently divested of her stall. He ruffled Turner’s hair before stopping to do the same to Kitty. 

Trystan leaned down and whispered something in Turner’s ear. Turner burst out laughing.

"What?" said Prompto, "you gonna let Papa in on the joke?"

"Your hair looks like a chocobo butt!" Turner exclaimed. He was giggling so hard his face was bright red. Prompto wondered if he should be worried about the kid choking – could you choke from too much laughter?

"We don’t say butt," Gladio admonished with a stern look on his face. "And Prompto, quit worrying, they aren’t gonna choke from laughing."

"We say butt all the time, Gladio. For example, your butt – " Prompto cut himself off when he saw just how keen Turner was on the conversation. "Uh, never mind. Hey buddy, you gonna go with us to check on the eggs?" 

"Hell yeah!" Turner answered, with pure childish delight in his voice. 

Prompto flinched. Gladio growled a little. "And that’s why we’re careful about what we say, right Prompto?"

"Uh, Oops?" Prompto offered up sheepishly. Turner definitely didn’t learn that word from Gladio, and he would pin it on Aranea, but he was pretty sure it was him. "Sorry, Gladio."

"Not me you should be apologizing to," Gladio said, but he looked smug, not angry, so Prompto counted that as a win.

There was giggle from behind him where Luna had stopped to feed greens to an adolescent chocobo named Prince. Prompto had named Prince after Noct because he wouldn’t let Noctis feed him or hug him, like, at all ever. They probably had fifty photos of Prince attempting to peck Noctis to death while he leaned away with his arms in the air and a betrayed look on his face.

Prince was currently occupied with preening and beak – butting Luna. It was such a cute scene that Prompto cast around automatically for his camera. Which he had left… somewhere. Luckily, Trystan was on it. The kid had recently purchased his own camera with his allowance money, a cheap one but perfectly serviceable, and had taken to following Prompto around on lazy Sunday afternoons and demanding impromptu photography lessons. 

They got a handful of photos and Trystan promised to Email them to Luna. It meant an old-fashioned USB cable and an awkward transfer from camera to laptop, but Trystan was dedicated. There were already several files of chocobo themed photos on the clunky family computer. They needed to be transferred somewhere else soon, before the thing died. It couldn’t even connect to the cloud. 

"Chocobos are booring," Turner announced. He had given up on Kitty and was laying in a pile of gross old hay. 

Prompto scooped him up and dusted some of it off his back. "Youre getting a bath later." He sniffed and wrinkled his nose. 

"With bubbles?" Turner asked, perking up.

Prompto laughed. "Anything you want, little guy. Should we go check on the chocobo eggs?"

"Hell yeah!"

_____

There was a crack in the egg. A tiny bit of beak was poking through, and every once in a while the whole thing would give a little shake. 

"Papa, it’s hatching!" Turner turned around and pulled on Prompto’s arm to get his attention.

He needn’t had bothered, Prompto was all over that shit. He crowded close. "Hey there, little buddy, you gonna join us?"

"How long does it take?" Luna asked. "Should I go get the others?"

"Chocobos are pretty strong, even as babies. A regular chick will take up to 24 hours, but with a chocobo, I dunno, give it… a few?" Gladio looked at Prompto for confirmation.

"Three, four if the shell is really thick. This one’s about average. I’d say we can expect it by the time we’re done with breakfast," Prompto supplied. "Someone should be in charge of checking, though." He looked around dramatically, like the kids weren’t already squirming to be assigned the role. "Any volunteers?"

Both kids raised their hand. Turner jumped up and down and started in on a mantra of "mememememe".

"I think you’ve got your chocobo monitors," said Gladio with a chuckle.

Luna hadn’t taken her eyes off the egg. Prompto had seen enough chicks hatch that it wasn’t captivating like it had once been, but he understood. He had stood vigil over the first few, resisting the urge to help the little guys out of their shells, which you are very much not supposed to do. When they realized what was going on people had started taking shifts with him. Noct would drop off meals, afraid that he wouldn’t remember to eat otherwise, even though it was perfectly reasonable to go four hours between meals. Normal, even. He had so many photos of chocobo eggs hatching that he had purchased the biggest memory card on the market for them. It was too bad, he thought, that the magic had worn off, even if it was just a little bit.

"Hey, Luna, if you wanna stay and watch you can."

"Yeah," Luna said, as though from a distance, "I might do that."

"Want some company?" The question came out a little timid for Prompto’s taste. Someday, he swore, he would get over his hang ups about people wanting him around.

Luna simply reached an arm out for him and wrapped it around his shoulders. He let her pull him in. After a minute a bench hit the back of his knees. "Something to sit on," Gladio said, a smile in his voice. "Come on kids, let’s finish the barn and go clean up before brunch."

It was nice, sitting there with Luna. Quiet. Prompto was kind of glad to have a break from the bustle of the kitchen, as fun as brunch undoubtedly was. He snorted, thinking about the Legos that would inevitably fall into the waffle batter (every single time, and they still weren’t sure which child it was) and Ignis’ face as he calmly picked them out. His arms folded over the rail of the incubator. He leaned his chin on them and surveyed the eggs, warm under the fluorescent light. The black chocobo egg was scaled like leather, hair cracks spiderwebbing out from where the tip of a beak just barely showed itself. Every once in a while it would twitch and the cracks would grow larger, and sometimes it would disappear back into the egg altogether, only to reappear a moment later, nudging away a new bit of shell. Some other eggs were starting to show signs of hatching, and yesterday they had moved a brand new baby chocobo into a slightly larger incubator to dry its feathers and join the clump of cuddling chicks that already rested there. Prompto supposed they were all siblings, even if they weren’t blood related. Not that different from his own wacky family, when it came right down to it.

Turner and Trystan came and went a few times, and Noct brought brunch over with Alexa’s "help". Ignis swept in behind to set up a portable table so that they could "eat like civilized humans". He also brought coffee, and somehow managed enough mugs for all of them. Cooper appeared a few minutes later with a pitcher of orange juice and some glasses. They partook in an abbreviated brunch there, warmed by the incubators, with Ignis and Noct sipping coffee while Prompto and Luna ate. Cooper and Trystan kept up a narrative of the egg’s progress while Turner and Alexa engaged in a combination of make-believe chocobo races, poking at the eggs (which was stopped by a stern look from Cooper), and bickering over toys fashioned out of assorted, probably unsafe materials gathered from forgotten corners of the barn. 

When they were finished eating, Ignis and the kids shuffled back out to join the others. Prompto caught Noct’s hand and he stayed behind for a bit, pressing his chest into Prompto’s back and wrapping his arms around him. He leaned into Noct, and all three of them fell into a comfortable silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [come visit me on Tumblr](https://itsalwaysbloodmagic.tumblr.com/)


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